


Knives - A Takashima Family Novel

by norsko



Series: Takashima Series [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Academy, Action/Adventure, Demons, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 01:57:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8778577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norsko/pseuds/norsko
Summary: Morgan Takashima figured after having been turned into a Vorvintti, a monster that had plagued his family for years, his life couldn't get any worse. Naturally, he was wrong. His younger brother is desperate for supernatural strength and an unseen foe is killing members of Morgan's extended family. Can Morgan stop the killings before his own life is in peril?





	1. Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again!
> 
> Yes, the third installment in the Takashima Series, and the current one (though I haven't updated it in a while, be warned. But I'll hop back on it eventually... eventually...)
> 
> Enjoy!

  A man faces a monster in an alleyway.

 

  The man—a brother, a protector, a leader—stares down through his glasses with both disdain and triumph, fingers idly twitching at his sides, itching for a fight that wouldn’t come.

  The monster—a brother, a protector, a leader—glares back through blood-smeared frames, eyes soulless and unseeing, worn down through countless battles both won and lost.

 

  Both are monsters in their own right, having fought and won with a tenacity not possible by human means. Both have seen loss, have seen chaos, and emerged alive but irrefutably different.

  But their paths have deviated, their lessons learned and interpreted in widely different ways. A man that wasn’t a man, and a monster that wasn’t truly a monster.

 

  A monster is being hunted by a man in an alleyway.


	2. Don't Go Bacon My Heart

****

    “This was a bad idea…!”

 

  Morgan Takashima yelled at the top of his lungs, the heavy bass of music thrumming beneath his feet a familiar and almost comforting sensation. It had been _months_ since he’d let himself go somewhere so populated by people, let alone as intense as a night club. He hadn’t trusted himself before but… for the first time in a while, he finally felt a small semblance of control coming back to him.

 

    “You’re fine!” his girlfriend shouted. Of all the things in the club, the thing that was distracting Morgan the most was probably the tight, lilac cocktail dress his girlfriend was wearing like cling-wrap. An afro of red curls danced around her head as she swayed to the music, storm-grey eyes glittering up at him as she flashed him a smile. “Just go with it!”

  To be fair, he really was trying to go with it. He hadn’t been to a night club in ages, but his body remembered what it was like; remembered the light-headed feeling of intoxication; the euphoria. But his body was vastly different to the way it was back then.

  As Morgan swayed uneasily to the heavy beat, Mel suddenly grabbed his hand and tugged him through the crowed. It was difficult to navigate among the throng, but people parted at the size of Morgan coming towards them—he wasn’t threatening in the least, with his glasses and crow’s nest of black hair, but he supposed people could sense an innate _wrongness_ about him, like their instincts kicking in. Smart of them.

  Mel stopped suddenly as a young man indicated her over, a glitter of white on the table in front of him.

 

    “Care for a line?” he asked with a lop-sided grin as he indicated several lines of powder on the table.

    “How much?” she asked at a yell, glancing back at Morgan quickly.

  The man glanced Mel up and down, sending a ripple of annoyance up Morgan’s spine. It wasn’t just the look that was pissing him off, but the guy’s thoughts—‘lewd’ would be putting it mildly.

    “For you, babe? On the house,” he glanced dismissively at Morgan, “For your pal, fifteen-hundred cen.”

  Morgan inwardly blanched. He wasn’t by any means poor, but this guy was ripping people off by about six-hundred cen. “Don’t want any,” he said instead.

    “C’mon, dude. Gotta’ make a living somehow.”

  Morgan smiled, but there wasn’t any humour in it. “Cerith don’t work on me pal.”

  The guy nodded sagely, like he understood Morgan’s plight. “Ah, one of those, huh. Took so much you don’t feel it no more, I get it. But trust me, this stuff will knock your socks—”

    “I said I don’t. Want. Any.” The guy shut his mouth straight away. Morgan nodded at Mel. With a shrug, she gave the dealer a wan smile, then bent down to have one of the lines. Morgan shuffled behind her, blocking her rear from view. It was one thing scoring off this asshole—he didn’t want anyone else to have a free-pass at his girlfriend’s expense.

  The two went back into the crowd of partygoers, much to Morgan’s displeasure. He’d only been in the club for about half an hour and already he was ready to punch someone in the throat.

    _Stop being such a party-pooper…!_

  Morgan nearly flinched at the mental shout. Mel’s eyes sparkled as she glanced back at him; he’d spent so much time with her that the unique tenor of her mental voice—not a sound, but an impression; for her the crackling of a blue fire of ocean-bleached wood—was instantly recognisable. He bent down to whisper in her ear, “Who says ‘party-pooper’ anymore?”

    _I do,_ she thought at him with a slight grin. _It’s what all the rad kids are saying these days._

  Morgan cringed, about to hastily correct her, when she froze, her eyes wide as she looked at something through the crowd.

    “…What?” he said as he followed her gaze. Before he could find out what she was looking at, Mel hastily grabbed his elbow and towed him in the opposite direction.

    “Nothing. We have to go, like right now.”

    “Whoa, hey, what—Mel, wha—” Morgan craned his neck back over the crowd, his hawk-like vision—despite the glasses—easily cutting through the throng. Then he spotted her.

  On one of the glass tables was, well, in Morgan’s opinion, one of the prettiest girls he’d ever laid eyes on. Even as he blanched at the thought of cheating on his girlfriend, he couldn’t deny this particular girl was a _stunner._ A black mini skirt and crop top barely concealed her body, a halo of sea-green hair whipping about her head as she danced sporadically on towering heels. In the back of his mind, Morgan worried she’d slip and fall.

  A slight tugging at his arm told him Mel was still desperately trying to pull him away, but he stood his ground.

    “…Who is that?” he said slowly, pointing across the crowd at the dancing girl.

  Mel gave one final tug before sighing and giving up.

    “That’s… my little sister.”

 

  It took Morgan a while to process that statement. In that time, neither of the two of them noticed the girl hopping off the table, coming through the crowd.

  Mel was the first to notice the girl wasn’t on the table anymore.

    “Oh, shit.”

  Morgan shook out of his surprise, following her gaze to where the girl was roughly pushing her way through the crowd, her lips moving as she mouthed something.

    “What’s she saying?” Mel asked hastily.

    “She’s calling your name. Thinking something else you probably don’t wanna know,” he answered.

    “Dammit.” Even as she said that, Mel plastered on a fake smile as the girl burst through the crowd and landed before the two of them, tugging her skirt down shapely legs. Morgan had the intense urge to look away.

 

    “Mellie!” The girl was a firecracker. She radiated light and joy and energy from every pore of her body. She gave Mel a fierce running-hug that Mel barely returned with light pats on the girl’s bare back.

    “Hey… Dahlia.

  Dahlia clapped her hands on Mel’s shoulders. Mel looked like a caged animal. “Didn’t expect to see you here of all places! Thought you’d be working, or studying or something.”

  Morgan could see the imperceptible glint of murder in Mel’s grey eyes. “Thought I’d take a break. My exams are over for the semester, so…” She ground the words between her teeth, but Dahlia seemed none the wiser.

    “Oh, finally. Don’t have to hear about how hard you’re working from nana all the time, at least for a few months.”

  Morgan chose to intercede before Mel burst a vein and throttled her little sister—a fight, admittedly, he wanted to see. He waved a hand in front of Dahlia’s face, drawing her attention. “Hey there, I’m—”

    “Not scoring today, buddy, that’s for sure.” Dahlia tried to draw Mel away, but Mel pushed her off, probably a little more violently than she needed.

    “No, he’s not trying to score, Dahlia, he’s my boyfriend.”

  Morgan tried to smile, but the glare Mel was giving her sister froze it on his face. “I’m Morgan.”

  Dahlia appraised him up and down quickly. “Oh…! Yeah, nan’s mentioned you! You’re tall. And not—well, not what I was expecting. Guess Mel’s always been into Asian guys.”

  It was Morgan’s turn to try not to burst a vein, in more ways than one. No-one spoke for a hefty length of time that made the silence more and more awkward with every passing second.

  Dahlia was eager to brake that silence; she seemed like the person who felt the need to fill every waking moment with noise. “Well…! Whatever, wanna dance?”

    “We were just leaving,” Mel supplied, tugging on Morgan’s sleeve.

    “Y-Yeah. Nice meeting you, though,” Morgan said at the look Mel was giving him.

    “Aw, damn. Don’t be party-poopers, c’mon—oh, crap.” Before Morgan could stop her, she shuffled hastily behind him, glancing around his arm like a rabbit from out of its burrow. “That’s my ex.”

  Morgan wondered at the coincidence of having both Dahlia _and_ her ex appear on this particular night. A guy probably a little older than him pushed roughly through the crowd, glaring at anyone and anything that dared get in his way. He had on a tacky, torn denim jacket, and as he got closer, Morgan noticed the guy had tapered ears, like an elf, and… were those _tusks?_

  The guy caught sight of Morgan and Dahlia cowering behind him. His eyes narrowed.

 

“Oi!” he yelled over the music, so loud even Mel and Dahlia could hear him. Now he was shoving people out of his way as he forced himself before the group.

    “Dahlia, girl, why haven’t you been answering my messages?”

  Yes, Morgan could see them clearly; they were, no mistake, tusks poking over the guy’s bottom lip.

    “Go away, Colin! I told you already, I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  Morgan was surprised; where did that fierce fire from before go? Now she was shouting while she cowered behind him. Maybe she was…afraid of this guy.

    “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” Colin begged, stepping forward. Morgan felt trapped between a rock and a hard place. “Stop hiding, Dahlia, please.”

  When Dahlia refused to budge, Colin turned his attention to Morgan. “C’mon man, get out of the way, this is between me and her.”

Dahlia gripped the back of Morgan’s jacket, hard. He glanced at Mel.

  She sighed, but thought, _Can you help my sis out?_

  Morgan nodded his head slightly, just enough for Mel to notice, before turning back to Colin. “She obviously doesn’t want to talk to you, dude.”

    “Yeah? That so? How would you know that? Who the fuck are you?”

  Morgan put up his palms, trying to placate the guy. “Just a friend of hers.”

    “This ain’t your fucking business. Move!” Colin tried to forcibly tug Morgan away from Dahlia, but he didn’t move an inch. A glint of orange on Colin’s left wrist caught Morgan’s eye as he pulled back, surprised.

    “Fucking, move!” Colin tried again, and this time Morgan got a good look at the bracelet on his wrist—it was a TAPE brace. Orange and black stripes wrapped around the thick metal of the bracelet, the orange giving off a soft glow.

  TAPES, as they’re commonly known, are supernatural individuals under police surveillance by the Supernatural Patrol, usually taken in because they were either a danger to other citizens, or to themselves. There was a scale of severity in place for these people, with triple-S being practically a god—the people wearing them only doing so out of courtesy; the SP had no chance against them—all the way down to F, just spirits and whisps that pose as only a slight threat.

  Morgan had no idea where he would rank on the system, hadn’t given it much thought, but the orange bracelet on Colin’s wrist indicated he was not only a level-D and pretty low on the food chain, but he was also inclined to be taken in by the police. Not someone the son of a gang leader needed to meddle with, in any case, lest he get caught too. Especially not when there was a very real possibility that one day he might be wearing something similar.

  Colin caught him staring at the band and tugged down the cuff of his sleeve. “Got something to say?”

  Morgan hadn’t meant to stare; the possibility of following along the same path as this sleaze had only then become a reality. “Nope.”

    “Good. Then step away from my girl.”

    _I’m_ not _your girl, asshole,_ Dahlia’s thoughts rang inside Morgan’s mind.

    “She doesn’t agree.”

    “What?”

    “She doesn’t think she’s your girl, man.”

  Colin scoffed. “What, you her lawyer or something? Why doesn’t she tell me that herself?”

  Dahlia stiffened. She really _was_ afraid of this guy. Morgan didn’t want to think about what he might have done to her for her to feel that way; she was a bit annoying, but she _was_ his girlfriend’s sister. He wouldn’t let this asshole bully her.

    “Just leave her alone, she doesn’t want to talk to you, can’t you see that?”

    “And I’m telling _you_ to move the fuck away and let her tell me that herself…!” Colin punctuated this last word with a punch aimed at Morgan’s cheek.

  Morgan didn’t even dodge. The punch hit home, but… it was barely a sting, barely a tap against his skin. He’d felt far worse than a punch from a dude with tusks, for crying out loud. Being burned alive and having your insides turned into minced meat changes a person. Morgan had the satisfaction of seeing Colin’s eyes widen in bewilderment. Then pain.

    “Ah, what the fuck?!” He shook his wrist, the knuckles turning purple.

    “Y’know its unbelievable how many people want to punch a dude wearing glasses.”

    _Doesn’t that say more about you than them?_ Mel thought beside him. He cut her a glare that lacked venom.

  Colin glanced around the crowd, before the anger was back on his face. “Outside. Right now.”

  Morgan shrugged. He’d been wanting to punch something for a while anyway. Before he could follow Colin out the door to the side of the club, Dahlia grabbed the back of his jacket, shaking her head. “Don’t, man. You don’t need to do this, I’ll just… I dunno, I’ll put up with him.”

    “What? After the way he treated you?” Morgan asked.

    “He’s a tape, he could seriously hurt you—”

    “He won’t.”

    “How can you know that?”

  Morgan gave her a small, reassuring smile. “I just do.”

  Before she could protest, Morgan slipped from out of her grip and out the backdoor, Mel taking Dahlia’s wrist in her own to stop her from yanking him back.

    “Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine. It’s your ex you should be worried about,” he heard Mel say behind him as the pair followed.

 

  It was raining despite the summer air, the breeze and water droplets warm in the wide alleyway behind the club. The air was sticky and humid, and it made Morgan’s skin itch. He much preferred winter, but didn’t mind the warm summer nights.

  Colin shook his wet mane of copper hair away from his eyes. Morgan resisted doing the same. The dude was seriously pissed, but it was more frustration than anything else; like Morgan, he just needed something to take it out on. He was more than happy to oblige, especially when he knew he’d walk away from this without a scratch.

    “I’ll give you one chance,” Colin said.

  Morgan nearly laughed. “For what?”

   “Let me talk to her.”

  Morgan turned back to Dahlia, and she shook her head vigorously. “She doesn’t want to talk to you. Fighting me ain't gonna make her change her mind.”

  Colin pondered this, for about a split-second. “Don’t give a shit, I’m gonna knock your pretty white teeth in anyway.”

  Morgan shrugged. “Good luck with that, pig-boy.” Admittedly he’d gone fishing inside Colin’s head for a bit—not a hobby he liked doing if he could help it; everyone’s entitled to their privacy—and he’d plucked out the term he knew would set the guy off. And he was right.

  Colin charged forward with a fierce yell. Between one step and the next, his form _changed—_ his tusks grew into sharp, threatening points, his nose becoming a snout just as copper fur erupted over his neck and shoulders. His muscles strained against the fabric of his shirt and jacket as he thundered along the cracked pavement, his fist coming up to slam into Morgan’s chest.

  Morgan didn’t think he’d be able to take that kind of punch this time round without consequences. But he didn’t want the behemoth to slam into the girls behind him, either. Morgan formed the path in his mind the split second before Colin struck, his body already moving before he’d sent the orders from his brain. He grabbed the fist flying toward his chest and with as much strength as he could muster, whipped Colin around and _threw_ him into the middle of the alleyway with a great, resounding _thud._

   Colin fell heavily to the ground, water splashing everywhere in his wake. His breathing was laboured, but likely not from exhaustion—from anger.

    “Morgan, don’t hurt him,” he heard Mel say behind him.

  Dahlia scoffed, incredulous. “But he’s a tape…”

    “I won’t,” he answered Mel without turning around.

  Somewhat shakily, Colin pulled himself back to his feet. He was actually huffing out great gulps of air he was so angry. He charged Morgan once again, but stopped just a foot away, his arms up around his head in a boxing stance. Looks like he learnt his lesson.

  He aimed his first punch at Morgan’s head, and Morgan craned his neck to the side. The next was aimed at his shoulder, and he dodged that easily too. Colin tried again and again, his fist flying through the air over and over, but finding nothing; he couldn’t hit him. Morgan dodged to the side with a laugh as Colin missed his head by mere inches, but it was a laugh more to antagonise than out of any real humour.

  Colin stepped back shakily, his fists clenched in anger at his sides, his head bowed. After a moment, he looked up at Morgan, his eyes full of determination. He raced forward, his fist flying once again, then feigned to the right at the last possible moment.

  Morgan had seen it coming, heard the cogs turning in Colin’s head as he worked out his plan. He clotheslined Colin’s torso as he came around, flinging him back against the pavement with a roar; the guy was a lot heavier than Morgan realised, and it had required him more strength than he had first imagined.

  As he picked himself up from the ground once again, Colin was overwhelmed with frustration and rage. With a fierce roar, he leapt at Morgan, no longer taking calculated punches and making plans to get to Dahlia—now, he wanted him _dead._

  The guy’s mind was a chaotic storm of anger; he flung himself at Morgan with a beastly fervour, pounding him with nails and fists. Morgan couldn’t dodge them all; he could no longer read Colin’s thoughts. His arms stung with scratches, his skin burning with bruises—if it were anyone else, Morgan had little doubt they’d already be on the ground with wounds far worse than these.

  Out of nowhere did Morgan predict _this._ Colin slammed his head—stronger than any human’s—against Morgan’s chest, this time sending _him_ sprawling to the ground. Despite his mindlessness, Colin wasn’t stupid; he took the opportunity to step over Morgan and grab Dahlia.

    “Dahlia!” he screamed as he grabbed her shoulders.

  Dahlia struggled in his grip, but there was no way she could get free. “L-Let me go!” Even Mel tried to drag him off of her, but he wouldn’t budge; she might as well have been a fly.

    “C’mon, babe! Come back with me!”

  As Morgan dragged himself to his feet, Dahlia screamed in pain. “You’re… hurting me…!”

  With a sudden flash of anger fuelling his body, Morgan forcibly tugged Colin away from Dahlia and shoved him into the alleyway before turning back.

    “You alright…?”

  Dahlia nodded, but she was shaking despite the humidity. “Yeah, he just scratched my arms a little…”

  But it wasn’t a little. Great claw marks zigzagged across her arms where he struggled to pull her with him, gouges in the dark flesh dribbling blood along her arms. They were pretty serious wounds; if Dahlia wasn’t as intoxicated and in shock as she was, Morgan figured she might’ve been groaning in a bit more pain.

  Morgan’s breath caught in his throat.

  His vision swam red as he struggled not to breathe through his nose; even then, the smell was more than palpable on his sensitive tongue. He turned back to Colin as his skin began to warm; the summer heat wasn’t finally taking its toll, this… was his body rebelling against him. The rain water turned to steam as it hit his skin.

  Colin was getting to his feet, his fingernails stained with Dahlia’s blood, before Morgan couldn’t reign in his temper—or his hunger—anymore.

 

  He leapt at Colin, pushing him to the ground with all his strength. Colin struggled, kicked at him, clawed at his exposed face and arms, but that only spurred Morgan on as the wounds healed instantly. Morgan punched him once, a blow that smacked the back of Colin’s head against the ground, then again and again and again, each one angrier and bloodier than the one before it.

  But Morgan’s rage hadn’t reached its peak, not even when Colin had already fallen unconscious. With a growl working its way up his throat and between his fangs, he pulled his arm up behind his head, ready to plunge it into Colin’s chest.

 

    “Oh my god, Morgan stop!” Suddenly Mel had his arm in her hands, gripping it tightly against her chest; he hadn’t even noticed her come beside him. “You’ll kill him.”

  Morgan looked down at what remained of Colin’s face. One of his tusks were missing, and blood that smelled just a little bit like pig covered every surface. His eyes were just great purple bulges—Morgan had no idea if he was even conscious or not—and he likely had a broken nose.

    “Jesus,” Morgan exclaimed as he leapt off Colin’s unconscious form. “Fuck I—dammit.”

  He turned back to Dahlia, struggling to find the words to apologise. But she was staring at him with a dizzying look of bewilderment, wonder, gratitude, and… fear.

    “Mellie… you need to fix your taste in guys.”


	3. I Couldn't if I Fried

****

    “And for the record, my taste in guys is none of your business,” Mel whispered angrily.

 

    “Shhh…” Morgan urged.

  Mel, Morgan and Dahlia hid behind a dumpster at the mouth of an alleyway, watching as the Supernatural Patrol came and took Colin into custody. Morgan guessed the fight had set off Colin’s brace, but didn’t know much beyond that. He figured he needed to book it as quickly as possible the moment he heard the squad of heartbeats moving toward the alleyway—this was the kind of shit they prosecuted non-humans for, and he wasn’t ready to have his current no-longer-human status known by the government.

  Dahlia patted Morgan’s smooth arms in wonder as he peered around the dumpster. “There really isn’t anything at all… What did you say you were?”

    “I didn’t,” Morgan answered, a little annoyed.                             

    “But you’ve gotta’ be like… something, right? Not… y’know, _human_ …?”

  Morgan frowned, opening his mouth then shutting it again. “We should probably go before they spot us,” he said instead, avoiding the question.

  Mel nodded. “Yeah, let’s.”

    “W-Wait! What about me?” Dahlia asked, a little too loud.

    “What _about_ you?” Mel asked back, her voice uncharacteristically cold.

  Morgan took pity on the crushed look on Dahlia’s face. He was always too nice for his own good. “If you’ve got nowhere else to be, you can come with us if you want.”

  Dahlia was thrilled, but the inside of Mel’s head became a warzone Morgan quickly blocked off from his own. She had a vice-grip on his arm when she said, “Fine. Let’s all go _together.”_

 

***

    “This is where you _live?!”_

  Dahlia stared around the glitzy foyer of the apartment complex, a building that had more the appearance of a five-star hotel and casino than a place where ordinary people lived. In a way, Morgan supposed, his family wasn’t exactly ordinary.

  Their feet clicked across the expensive marble, the elevator attendant nodding and giving Morgan a small, professional smile as the three boarded the elevator. Morgan punched in a four-digit code into the sleek glass panel near the elevator’s buttons and Dahlia just about lost her mind.

    “Do you like, live in the penthouse or something?!”

    “…You could say that,” Morgan answered with disdain, already regretting letting her come with the two of them.

    “Whoa, are you rich?”

    “…Yeah,” was all Morgan managed to say.

  Once again the three lapsed into an uncomfortable silence that thankfully didn’t last long as the elevator came to a stop at Morgan’s floor. The three departed, Dahlia all but racing into the wide space beyond. Her eyes strayed over the kitchen to the right, then off into the game’s room, and finally, the wide door leading off into Morgan’s room to the left. Morgan had learnt all too well from a young age his ‘room’ wasn’t really a room at all—it was a house all on its own, and that wasn’t exactly normal, apparently, and to most people it was a surprise. Just like it was now to Dahlia.

    “Is this your…apartment?” she asked.

    “It’s his _floor,_ Dahlia. The rest of his… family live on some of the other floors.” Mel was enjoying Dahlia’s amazement.

    “Make yourselves at home, I’m gonna’ change,” Morgan said, not interested in the fun.

    “Bring me a jumper?” Mel asked.

    “Only if you don’t take it home with you!” Morgan said as he closed his bedroom door.

  He changed slowly, not exactly eager to have another conversation with Dahlia. She wasn’t exactly a bad person, she was a just a bit annoying and asked the wrong questions. If it was one thing Morgan had learnt living his life stooped in gang and mob business, it was to _never_ ask the wrong questions. Rifling through the clothes his walk-in closet, he was only gone for probably a few minutes before a scream rent through the air.

    “The fuck?” he said out loud before racing from his room to the source of the noise.

  He stopped in his bedroom doorway at Dahlia frozen in front of his open fridge door, her hand cupped over her mouth. Mel was similarly frozen with a beer in halfway to her mouth sitting on a stool at the kitchen bench. Her eyes flickered to Morgan, before she put the beer down and went to join her sister.

  But before she could lay a hand on her sister, Dahlia turned around suddenly, slamming the fridge door. “I didn’t. See anything.”

  Everyone was frozen for several seconds, before Mel suddenly burst into laughter. “Jesus, Dahl. It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything. You were asking him about it before, for crying out loud.”

    “…I was?” Dahlia said after a moment. As Morgan’s heartbeat returned to normal, he realised Dahlia hadn’t pieced his fridge with the incident earlier that evening together yet.

    “You were right, I’m not human, Dahlia. I’m—”

 

    “MORGAN…!”

  A voice accompanied by the pounding of feet erupted from the head of Morgan’s stairs, followed by a mane of rust-coloured hair and a then a skinny thirteen-year-old boy. “I think I _finally_ found a way I can get stronger without becoming a vampire or selling my soul to Satan or…”

  Erin stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, his green eyes first resting on Mel, then Dahlia and finally Morgan. His face turned beat-red at the miniskirts both Mel and Dahlia were still wearing. “I-I-I’m sorry, I’ll just get out of your way…”

  Before Erin could make a getaway, Morgan grabbed the back of his collar and tugged him back. “We’re not doing anything, ya’ idiot…! Don’t make shitty assumptions about me!”

    “You ain’t no model citizen!” Erin retorted as he turned back around, flicking Morgan’s hand away from his neck. The pair froze at the sound of Dahlia’s airy laughter.

    “Who’s this lil’ guy?” she asked with a smile that made Erin blush even more.

    “Isn’t so little anymore,” Mel said as she came around and ruffled Erin’s hair, grabbing a beer from the fridge full of nightmares.

    “My little bro, Erin,” Morgan supplied with a sideways glance at his younger brother. Mel was right; he hadn’t really noticed since he lived with the kid, but he distinctly remembered a point in time where Erin only came up to Mel’s shoulder, at most. Now he was at least half a head taller than her. Was puberty always so… intense?

  Morgan pushed the thought out of his mind quickly—he didn’t want to contemplate the fact that as his brother grew, he’d always have the same nineteen-year-old body, no matter how old he was inside.

    “Huh.” Dahlia pointed to herself, then her sister, “Younger sister, older sister.” She pointed to Erin, then Morgan, “Younger brother, older brother. Funny how that works.”

    “Yup, pretty hilarious,” Mel said as she popped the lid off a beer. Erin caught Mel’s icy tone, but didn’t comment.

    “Shouldn’t you be in bed, kiddo? It’s like two am,” Morgan grinned at Erin.

    “Don’t call me ‘kiddo’. It’s school holidays, so… Why’re are _you_ out so late?”

  Morgan snorted through his nose. “Well A, I’m twenty, so legally an _adult,_ and B, nocturnal. Take your pick, _kiddo.”_

  “Ass.”

    “I live to please. Oh, yeah. What was that thing you found?” Morgan recalled Erin racing so excitedly up the stairs. Erin was a welcome distraction compared to Dahlia, but the kid’s obsession with getting ‘stronger’—whatever that meant; Morgan wasn’t entirely too sure what his little brother was planning—was beginning to concern him. Guess he couldn’t really blame the kid; having your older brother ‘killed’ and coming back to life irreversibly changed by a scary vampire lady with a penchant for killing your family members would stir anyone to search for a higher power.

    “Okay so, remember at the mansion, there was this room full of weapons—”

    _“What_ mansion?” Dahlia interrupted.

  Erin gulped. “Um, like this mansion where all these vampires lived that we killed—”

    “Vampires? Killed?! _We?!”_

  A vein in Morgan’s temple twitched ominously. He was about to open his mouth when he could literally see the light bulb light up in Dahlia’s eyes.

    “Oh!” She turned to Morgan. “You’re a vampire? Cool. But what mansion? And who would help you with _that_ kind of thing?”

  For making such a big deal out of finding out what he was, the way Dahlia brushed it off left Morgan slightly off-balance.

  Erin bailed him out. “My dad’s gang—”

    “Y’all are in a gang?!”

  Everyone except Dahlia visibly sighed with frustration.

    “Just let the kid finish!” Mel all but screamed.

    “My dad’s gang, and Morgan too, killed all the vampires in this mansion, no big deal. The point is there was a room full of all these weapons, and some of them were… were enchanted, I think.”

  Morgan finally understood where the kid was going. “And you want to what, use some of these to fight maybe? How, you weigh like thirty pounds soaking wet.”

    “…Rude,” Erin supplied.

    “Wait, y’all… are in a gang? Is no one gonna’ talk about that?” Dahlia asked finally.

  Morgan sighed, but once again Erin came to his aid and explained the whole family gang, the _Akatsuki,_ to her in probably more detail than was necessary.

  After he was done, Dahlia grew pensive, for the first time that night looking like she was seriously in thought about something. Morgan was about to ask if she was alright and wasn’t in fact having a seizure, when she finally glanced up at the group.

 

    “…Can I join?”


	4. Wasted Opportunities

****

    “This is a bad idea.”

 

  The night air was warm with the scent of flowers, too many scents overlapping each other as they strived to reach Erin’s nose. He hadn’t been able to see them properly—he was unconscious the last time he was here—and the amazing and impossible sight of so many species of flowers blooming side-by-side, some out of season, some just simply not compatible with the climate, had him captured.

  The scent was bittersweet. The last time he had been at _Gladiolus_ Manor, a little less than a year ago, he’d been knocked unconscious and dragged through the decrepit mansion’s walls, where upon awakening he’d found himself at the mercy of a _Vorvintti_ vampire keen on stripping the flesh from his bones. It was only thanks to the kitsune that were similarly deterred that he had managed to escape at all—they hadn’t come out of the mansion alive.

 

    “There’s no one here,” Erin reassured. Morgan gave him a passing frown as he turned his wine-coloured eyes back to the peeling white walls of the manor, pupils full and round—nothing like the venomous snake-eyes Erin had grown used to during the day.

  In truth, Erin had been staking out the place for weeks before he’d gathered the courage to ask his older brother to come with him to check it out. During the free time he had outside middle school he came here, if only briefly. So far he’d seen absolutely no one go in or out. He knew the place was already abandoned, but it wasn’t as though it was completely hidden from the public—he’d expected squatters, or at most juvies, but so far there was no one at all.

 

    “ _Vampires_ lived here?” Dahlia asked no one in particular. She was another surprise; Erin hadn’t expected her to tag along, but ever since she’d ‘joined’ the _Akatsuki_ a little over a month ago she’d insisted on injecting herself into as much of Morgan’s business as she could.

    “ _Vorvintti_ ,” Morgan corrected, the crease on his forehead deepening.

    “But it’s so… run-down,” she finished.

  Erin skipped ahead, picking his way between cobblestones nearly completely overrun by grass and dirt, making his way to the manor’s oak front door. He stopped as he reached the gaping hole where the door should have been, the interior completely obscured by inky blackness. A shiver went up Erin’s spine; a current of cold air whistled through the old wood of the manor. The place felt eerily alive, like it had witnessed all the horrors that had happened within its walls and it was breathing Erin a heavy sigh. He fished his phone from the pocket and lightly tapped his fingers across the screen, turning on the flashlight.

  The light didn’t ease the nervousness in his stomach. Dahlia and Morgan grew silent behind him as he lightly stepped across the threshold and into the heart of the manor. Swinging the flashlight across the rotting floorboards and peeling, colourless wallpaper, the manor was left much as Erin remembered it. His footsteps felt too heavy, too loud, in the vast empty space as he made his way to the room on his left, a small space with nothing but a shabby couch and wall-mounted flat screen adorning the room. He swung his flashlight back just in time to see Morgan smile.

    “What?” Dahlia asked as Erin continued forward as though nothing had happened.

    “Some asshole that… he nearly killed me the first time we met. Got revenge on him later in this room.” The deep timber of Morgan’s voice carried too far; Erin could hear it echoing out several rooms away.

    “You kill him?” Dahlia asked in a voice kept flat and matter-of-fact.

    “Nah. He could’ve killed me the first time, if he wanted to. Just returned the favour.”

  The three made their way from the small room to the next, a small bedroom-turned-storage-space that was covered with a thick layer of dust. The adjourning bathroom to the left broke off into a corridor, and across from that, a wall of rusted metal.

  Erin took it in, properly, seeing it clearly from the outside for the first time. It was probably once an ordinary room, a bedroom maybe, before the walls were replaced by steel and soundproof insulation. The iron door was—thankfully—closed. Erin didn’t want a reminder of what went on in there, how many lives were sacrificed so that he might have had a change to escape. He closed his eyes briefly, a silent prayer to the kitsune women that had given their lives for him, before he opened them, shook himself, and moved on. He felt his brother’s eyes on him, remembered Morgan could read his thoughts. He ignored him, but not in a cold way—he’d grown used to it over the past year, and no doubt Morgan had grown used to ignoring the thoughts that weren’t his own—and stepped into the great ballroom beyond the torture chamber.

 

  Erin didn’t need the flashlight here. The moon was bright and full, like it had been on _that_ night, its white-blue light illuminating half of a once massive and grand ballroom, the other half missing as though a giant had reached down and tore it right from the building. In its place was a sprawling meadow of blooming blue flowers all the way to the edge of the property line.

  Erin slipped his phone back in his pocket as the three slowly made their way across the marble, Dahlia staring around in wonder.

    “Jesus…” she said slowly. “What… _happened_?”

    “It was like this when we got here,” Morgan supplied, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, like he was describing the weather. This was something else Erin had had to get used to in the past year. Morgan had never particularly dealt with his emotions well, but ever since he’d become _Vorvintti_ he’d had the startling option to simply… _switch them off_ when they became too much. Erin didn’t like it; he’d rather have his brother an emotional wreck than a stone-cold bitch.

    “Even this?” Dahlia asked as she pointed to a massive crater in the marble floor. It extended from the floor into the meadow, as though a comet had fallen from the sky and had ploughed into the rock and dirt.

  Morgan passed his eyes over the crater, his eyes flickering with barely-checked emotion. It wasn’t negative emotion he was holding back, however. “That was me,” he answered.

    “You… like, you were thrown?”

    “No, I was doing the throwing.”

  Dahlia’s eyes widened. She glanced at the crater, then back at Morgan, as though for the first time since they’d met she was finally understanding the potential of his strength. She wasn’t afraid.

    “C’mon,” Erin called as he made his way to the opposite end of the hall. Seeing the ballroom had made him desperately wish to be rid of the place suddenly. The hysteric cries of his brother echoed in his ears, red tears and ashes the only remains of the terrible enemy that had plagued his family and had torn Morgan from his grasp. He placed his palms against the door and pushed, pushing the memories aside as he did so.

 

  There was only one room left to check. The hallway beyond the ballroom broke off into two sections ahead; to his left, a staircase and corridor that lead to the left wing of the house and just up ahead, the room he was looking for.

  Erin hastily made his way into the manor’s treasure room, the one room in the place that he was actually anticipating seeing once again. He could already imagine himself sorting through the massive piles of weapons stored there, the magic in them thrumming against his skin—

  He stopped.

  The room was empty.

  Erin stepped into the room, disbelieving as he glanced around. He desperately looked into every corner, shining his flashlight across the walls and the windows covered in black paint.

  There was nothing left. Not even the most dispensable of things in Erin’s memory— _everything_ had been taken. His free hand was a fist at his side.

    “Erin—” Morgan begun before Erin shouldered him aside, leaving the empty room, and Dahlia and Morgan behind.

 

  It was uncharacteristic of him to be this angry, this frustrated, and he knew it. As he thundered up the steps in the hallway to the second floor, Erin struggled internally. He wasn’t… angry, no, that didn’t seem right. He was _frustrated_ more than anything. He’d been searching for _months_ since his brother had been turned, since his family and his father’s gang had been practically destroyed at the hands of the _Vorvintti,_ since they had been bested at the hands of the demon that had been possessing his aunt, for a way to fight back. It had started as a small thing, just a tiny spark of yearning for something _more._ That spark had started a fire that had fuelled Erin on a hunt for that something more for months now—he’d barely been paying attention in school, despite it being his first year of middle school, he’d hardly spent any time meeting new people, making new friends, establishing himself. He surfed the net until his eyes were blurry at night, he trawled through books in the city until the store-owners and librarians told him to leave.

  He’d honestly thought he’d caught a break when he remembered the extensive armoury in _Gladiolus_ Manor. Now there was nothing left for him here.

  Erin made his way back to the ballroom, sitting on the crumbling marble divide separating the meadow from the manor. After a while he heard Morgan and Dahlia’s steps echo behind him.

    “Erin…” Morgan begun.

    “I’m fine,” Erin answered, only a half-lie. He was defeated here, in this moment, but it didn’t mean he’d given up.

  Morgan nodded, listening to all he needed in Erin’s thoughts. “We should get back.”

    “What? That’s it?” Dahlia asked, disappointed.

    “There’s nothing here,” Morgan supplied as he helped Erin to his feet.

  The three made their way back through the mansion, the whistling of the warm summer air the only noise to accompany them. At the foot of the steps beyond the gate leading into the mansion, Erin glanced back one last time. He didn’t plan on coming back.

  Erin froze.

  A glint of silver, far off in the grass, caught his eye then disappeared. Erin stared into the space, but the glitter didn’t reappear.

    “Erin?” Morgan asked.

  Erin waved him off. “I’ll catch up with you. There’s something… something I wanna check out.”

  Morgan frowned, a little confused, but didn’t ask anything else. He and Dahlia went off into the night. Erin waited until they were far down the street, close to the portal that would take them back to twenty-first precinct before he ventured back onto the manor’s grounds.

  He gingerly picked his way across the overgrown grass and flowers until he reached a huge juniper tree fringing the manor’s property line.

  Erin smiled, kneeling near the tree’s trunk. “It’s alright,” he said to the tree. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  Nothing happened for several seconds. Then, the gentle rustling of parting grass as something came out from behind the tree.

  It was a cat. No, not a cat—it was the biggest kitten Erin had ever seen, but the triangular tail like an antenna and the stubby legs were unmistakeable. Its inky-black fur rippled like liquid in the night, darker than the darkness around it, as it slowly padded its way toward Erin’s outstretched fingers, cautious.

    “I won’t hurt you,” Erin repeated.

  The kitten glanced up as it tentatively sniffed at Erin’s fingers, revealing the most beautiful lavender eyes he had ever seen. Erin carefully placed his fingers on the kitten’s head, patting it as the kitten closed its brilliant eyes, content.

  Then after a moment, the kitten took off.

As well as being much larger than the average kitten, it was faster than one too. It darted around his fingers and raced through the grass, barely making a sound, the only indication it was even there at all the parting of grass in its wake. Erin instinctively leapt after it.

    “Hey!” he shouted as the kitten stopped at the manor gates, glancing back at him with its shining eyes. “What’s the rush?” Erin asked as he reached the gates.

  He didn’t receive an answer; the kitten took off once again, bounding along the street to his left. Once it got far away enough down the street, it glanced back at Erin, as if to say, _C’mon!_

  Erin obliged. He chased the cat along what felt like the entire twelfth precinct. The night was still early as the landscape changed around him—the suburban sprawl of twelfth was replaced by the more derelict warehouses of thirteenth, those replaced by the rundown bars and casinos of fourteenth.

  It was to his dismay that the kitten stopped in front of what appeared to be one of these derelict bars in fourteenth precinct.

    “I’m too young to go in there,” he told the cat with dismay. The kitten’s response was to lick its paw and rub at its stubby ears. The kitten didn’t move, only standing to the right of the entrance to the bar. Erin took in the place—the cheap corrugated metal walls, the red neon sign intermittently flashing ‘ _Parades_ ’ into the night sky, the rowdy, loud bar mates. Though the bar was right on the edge of a boardwalk onlooking a massive lake, it was as dingy as dingy could get.

    “I really can’t go in there,” Erin said. He didn’t really want to, either. The kitten suddenly glanced at the bar’s entryway, then quickly took the cuff of Erin’s jeans into its little mouth, desperately tugging it back away from the entrance.

    “Whoa, where—” Erin let the kitten him drag him back away from the entrance—just in time.

 

  A great crash echoed from within the bar and in the next moment, a large _something_ came crashing through the glass, right on the place where Erin had been standing.


	5. You're Playing with the Big Boys Now

****

  Erin was frozen.

Not in fear, but surprise; he certainly did not expect a massive _thing_ to come crashing through the window, tumbling over and over themselves and falling in a heap just before the edge of the boardwalk.

  Erin was rooted to the spot as the person roughly pushed themselves to their feet—only to realise they weren’t really a person at all. Though they stood on two legs, had two arms and a head, they couldn’t be mistaken for being human. Rough, grey skin like leather rippled across a massive, muscular frame, four-fingered hands overly large and blocky.

 

    “You fucking cunt,” came a hoarse voice like gravel through the thing’s beaky mouth. Above the beak was a nose adorned with a massive horn, and above that a set of small, beady-black narrowed eyes. He nearly looked like a rhinoceros, Erin realised, then dismissed the idea; rhinos weren’t native to Jotai—nothing from his home world of Earth could be found on this strange world.

  The rhino-man readjusted the thick collar around his throat, the brace glowing a faint green—he was a TAPE.

  Erin’s attention was snatched at the sound of crunching glass at the bar’s entrance. A man steadily stepped through the broken door, boots crushing the broken glass beneath his heel.

 

    “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” came an equally gravelly voice from beneath the man’s beige Stetson.

    _Cool…_ Erin thought.

  Everything about the man screamed comic book superhero in Erin’s mind. From the ridiculous cowboy hat, to the leather sleeveless jacket and torn jeans. What really drew his attention was the intricate tattoos along the man’s arms—solid-black ink adorned every inch of exposed skin; toothy skulls with glaring red eyes, crows, wolves and every superstitious harbinger of death rippled across toned muscle. As the man moved, Erin swore the ink swirled and moved across the man’s skin like it had a life of its own.

  Erin lost his mind when the man tipped his hat back.

    “C’mon Torl. You’re getting’ too old for this shit.”

  He had a cybernetic right-eye. The black sclera and brilliant, electric-blue iris gave it away compared to the man’s ordinary brown left-eye, the skin around it flawlessly fused with the metal socket as though it had been grown from it. The man would otherwise have had a handsome, bearded face for his age.

    “Fuck you, Jurien. We’re _both_ too old.” The rhino-man, Torl, narrowed his eyes down at the cowboy, Jurien, then dusted off his overalls.

    “That don’t mean you can pick fights with anyone you see,” Jurien replied. They were just in a fight with each other but now managed to sound like a couple of old friends having a chat. Erin was stunned—one of them got thrown through a window for crying out loud.

    “Why don’t you go home? Before the SP turn up for that,” Jurien pointed at the collar around Torl’s neck.

    “Whatever,” Torl snarled, but he backed down and went off along the boardwalk anyway, grumbling along to himself the whole time. Jurien walked calmly back to _Paradise_ ’s entrance, where he whistled between his teeth at the shattered glass.

    “This gon’ cost me one.”

  After a moment or two, Jurien finally turned his eyes on Erin, who had been standing stock-still during the whole encounter.

    “Can I ‘elp you?” Jurien asked.

  Erin finally took a breath and shook his head. Jurien shrugged, but as he placed his palm against the doorframe Erin couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

    “How’d you throw that guy through the door?” Erin asked before he could stop himself.

  Jurien shrugged again. “Got plenty of tricks up my sleeve.”

    “Like the legs?”

  The man paused, his bearded lips parted slightly in surprise.

    “Sorry, I didn’t—I just noticed it as you were walking. Cybernetic? Like the eye?”

    “Yeah…like the eye. Lost both of ‘em when I was a kid; been compensating ever since.”

  Jurien gave him a farewell nod, then stepped back inside the bar. Erin wasn’t ready to let go just yet—he followed him.

    “Compensating how?” Erin asked as he stepped across the broken glass. The bar was surprisingly well-lit, with fans blowing stale air high up from the ceiling, an amazing array of patrons of different species sitting at the tables and the bar along the wall. Heads turned as Erin entered, but dismissed him quickly once they saw Jurien.

  Jurien moved to an unoccupied table far in the back of the room. Erin gulped, then followed.

  The old man turned back quickly. “That ain’t none of your business, kid.”

  Erin frowned. “I’m not a kid.”

    “Yeah? How old are you anyway, nine? Ten?”

    “I’m thirteen, nearly fourteen,” Erin answered before he could stop himself. It struck him just then how badly that sounded in this kind of setting. Jurien seemed to realise it too; he sat heavily in his seat, taking a sip of the amber liquid in the glass in front of him. He caught the bartender’s eye then tapped the table, twice.

    “What are we having?” Erin asked.

  A sip. “ _You_ ain’t havin’ shit, kid. Go home; don’t disappoint your momma.”

 

  After a moment, Erin asked, “You got a permit?” His stomach burned with icy rage.

    “For what?”

    “Those legs.”

  Jurien once again paused, the whiskey glass halfway to his lips.

    “Combat grade, right? Those muscle amps are level twelve electro-fibrous tissue; they use it in the Defence Bureau, for amputee privates. Plus the magnetic optical-resonance nerves… lightning fast reflexes, with minimal bio-mechanical nerve transfer resistance.”

  Jurien had his mouth open, the glass in his hands forgotten.

    “Pretty impressive, but… That’s military grade, top level stuff. Only meant for the elite, or the rich that can afford it.

    “So… do you got a permit for them, Mister?” Erin finished.

  The bartender came around and dropped off two more glasses of whiskey, one of which Erin snatched up quickly before Jurien could stop him and downed the whole thing in two gulps. His eyes watered as he tried not to cough, but he leaned his chin on his palm, waiting for Jurien’s answer.

  He had him cornered now; the punishment for illegal augmentation was severe in Jotai City—no one wanted the Jotai National Defence Bureau on their ass, especially not for something like this.

  Jurien had to know that. He downed the rest of his drink without batting an eye, then downed the other one.

    “What do you want, kid?” he asked finally.

    “I just want to know how you scared that rhino guy off,” Erin answered.

    “What’s a rhino? Nevermind, you _know_ how I did it, you just explained it; the legs.”

    “I thought that at first but those legs can only generate about four hundred and fifty pounds of pressure. That rhino—that guy should push about a thousand pounds if he wanted to. Those legs shouldn’t scare him as much as you did. So I wanna know how you did it.”

  After a moment, Jurien sighed. “You’re one smart kid.”

    “I… need to be.”

  Jurien’s lips turned at the edges, just the hint of a bemused smile. “Alright. It’s cuz’ of this.”

  He picked up one of the empty glasses, turning it over this way and that as he appraised its surface. As the glass touched the tips of his fingers, the tattoos along Jurien’s arm began to _move,_ swirling and shifting across his skin. The red eyes of the deadly creatures inked there began to glow a faint, eerie red.

  Then the glass—crumbled.

  Before Erin’s eyes the glass simply became black sand, spreading out from where Jurien’s fingers touched it. After a moment the last vestiges of the glass turned to sand and Jurien’s hand was empty.

  Erin was once again stunned.

    “Scared now, kid?” Jurien asked with a grin that held no mirth.

  Erin mentally shook himself. “No, that’s amazing.”

  His words sounded so sincere Jurien appeared taken aback. Indeed, Erin _was_ sincerely amazed; this kind of power was rare and incredible.

    “Amazing? Destroying things with a single touch is… amazing?”

    “Yeah I mean it seems like… a dark power, but… imagine how much _good_ you could do with it.”

  Erin was glancing between the black mound of sand on the tabletop and the swirling black ink on Jurien’s arms—he didn’t catch the surprised look the man gave him.

    “‘Good’, huh? Is that what you would do, if y’all had something like this?”

    “You bet.”

    _No one would be able to hurt my family again,_ Erin thought but did not say.

  “Humph. Alright. Why don’t we have a chat, kid.”

  Erin glanced up quickly as Jurien got to his feet. “Huh?”

    “C’mon.”

  Erin hastily scrambled to follow as Jurien passed the bar on his way out, tapping his transparent card against the register.

    _Huh,_ Erin wondered. Those specific brand of bank cards were usually reserved for the richer community of Jotai City, those that lived in high-rise apartments in a penthouse or mansions in the richer precincts. If Jurien was loaded, it was weird for him to be hanging around a dingy place like this. Erin didn’t want to think he’d stolen it. Sneakily checking the wallet in his back pocket, he was relieved once he found his clear bank card still in its holder. He turned back just in time to catch Jurien smirking at him. Erin flushed.

  The pair left the dingy bar behind, strolling along the boardwalk and up the stairs spanning across the low hills behind the strip of buildings along the pier. Erin searched around the entrance, but the kitten that had lead him into this mess had completely disappeared.

    _Figures,_ Erin thought. _Ran away when things went to crap._

  As they walked along the empty street, the casinos and fancier bars long since behind them, Erin felt very suddenly vulnerable.

    “Nothin’ to fear, kid. Ain’t gonna’ hurt you,” Jurien said, as though sensing Erin’s discomfort.

    “That’s what they all say before a homicide.”

  Jurien shrugged. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

  Erin didn’t like it, but he felt compelled to follow the older gentleman, up until the moment the man stepped toward the edge of a portal lying at the corner of the street and held out his hand.

  Erin took a step back from the blue, mirror-like edge of the round disk that served as a portal. “Are you nuts? I’m not taking a portal with you.” Even as he said that he glanced back at the man’s hand.

  Jurien let out a heavy sigh. “This was your idea. I’m just going to show you how I got these,” he said, indicating his tattoos.

    “…What do you mean?” Erin asked, taking a step forward.

    “This power I got… I wasn’t born with it or anything. It was given to me. Well, no actually, I guess I let them do it—the point is, the power comes from the ink. And y’all might just be able to get some yourself.”

 

  Erin reached for Jurien’s hand without a second’s hesitation. The pair stepped into the portal, the gentle blue glow and the slight vertigo of teleportation making Erin’s head spin. After a moment the light settled, the warm dark of the summer night enveloped the pair once again as Erin took in his surroundings.

 

    “Wow…” Erin said.

  He found himself outside the gates of a colossal building, gothic architecture sprawling into a vast, cathedral-like monolith of rough-hewn grey brick. The place was fringed on all sides by smaller, conjoining buildings—a _school,_ Erin realised. And just behind the main structure was an enormous tower, hewn from the same grey brick, with only a faint golden glow from the single window at the tower’s peak illuminating the school grounds.

  Erin was a rich kid; he’d gone to a private junior high, and now a private middle school—he knew old money when he smelled it. This was on a whole other level. This was the kind of place wizards would study magic at.

    “Wow,” Erin said again. “It’s…big.”

  Jurien chuckled. “That’s one way to put it.” Jurien grabbed a brochure from a stack sitting in a little cubbyhole on the side of the gate, placing the paper in Erin’s hands. He reached into his leather jacket as Erin stared at the brochure in his hands, pulling out something that glittered silver between his fingers.

    “For the record, I do have a permit for these,” he said as he showed Erin the unmistakeable badge of a JNDB officer.

 

    “Welcome to the Parlour, kid.”


	6. This is My Origin Story

****

    “Everyone, welcome to the Parlour.”

 

  It was different seeing it during the day.

  The massive school wasn’t as menacing for one thing—the campus was bustling with people of different ages and backgrounds, though Erin noticed they were predominantly that of school children close to his own age. The crowd gave life to the old grey building; what was once a downright terrifying haunted castle was now a hive of new beginnings and potential.

      “Why don’t we go inside?” the guide said. She was an older woman with a tightly pinned bun on the nape of her neck, a cool expression behind her glasses, but laugh-lines around her mouth. The small group around Erin—also mostly kids in their teens—hastened to follow the guide as she led them inside the school gates. As they crossed the threshold Erin felt Morgan stiffen beside him.

    “What?” Erin asked.

  Morgan shrugged, but it was more like a shiver. “…Nothing.”

  Erin frowned but didn’t ask further as the guide led the group through the throng of people. They walked along a main path lined on either side with stalls of students earnestly handing out fliers about their clubs and about the school. For a place meant to teach the mysteries of magic, it had an upbeat university feel to it that made Erin giddy. As they walked along though, Erin wasn’t disappointed.

    “Here, take one!” A girl in a stereotypical witch-girl outfit—a cape, hat, and cute little skirt complete with wand—handed him a flier with words that literally glowed neon on the page.

    “Whoa, cool,” he said to himself, too preoccupied with the other stalls to really read what was on the page. Erin and Morgan impulsively took every flier that was shoved into their hands as the guide led them to the courtyard of the great academy until their arms were overflowing with enchanted paper.

  The guide—Livia, her name tag read—stopped them in the courtyard to the main building around a great fountain that sprinkled rainbow-coloured water. A stone statue at the centre of the fountain of Jotai’s patron goddess, the Empress, sprayed water from between her fingertips as the group sat on the edge of the fountain.

    “Just for the next few opening days, we’ll be running trial classes for all of you, just so you get a feel of what classes here might feel like. We’ll tour the school then—”

  She stopped as one of the group raised their hand. “Is it true you’ll work around our school timetables?”

  Livia’s eyes widened slightly, but she nodded. Erin recalled having read about this while he had done his research on the Parlour in the last couple weeks; if they wanted to attend normal school as well as this one, the Parlour would cater their classes to the student the best they could. Erin could understand the reasoning behind it, but couldn’t understand how it was physically possible—just by the sheer number of people here today, how could the tutors cater their timetables to every single one of them?

    “Yes, in a way we do. Every student is different, of course—some prefer to be taught in a cram-school style setting, going to their normal classes then going to Parlour classes afterward. But the stress of that usually changes their minds once they become seniors. We prefer to talk to your teachers and principals ourselves, and organise a way we can make everyone happy.”

    “What other ways are there though?” someone asked in a wobbly voice.

    “Well if you don’t do anything else, full-time study is easy. If, like most of you, you’re in high school, we usually talk to your teachers to swap out one or two of your subjects.”

  The group began muttering to each other. Erin grew a little uneasy—he didn’t know anyone else here, but he was thinking of the same questions. He started at a sudden hand on his shoulder.

    “Just wait,” Morgan said with a smile and a gleam in his eye as he looked back at the guide.

  One of the group stepped forward. “But…I dunno about talking to our teachers… would they even think its okay?”

  Livia’s eyes brightened. “The Parlour may not be known to many, and won’t give out scholarships to even less, but in the eyes of the government we’re a pretty renowned academy. We’ve negotiated this kind of thing for years, with all manner of schools. Just think of it like an extracurricular activity—some university students have to travel between universities to study all their classes, right?”

  The group grew more positive after that. Livia clapped her hands together, like a teacher getting the attention of their students. “Well enough of that—let’s have a look at the place you might spend the next few years of your lives.”

 

  If Erin thought the fliers were impressive, he was in for a surprise. Nowhere in the pamphlets he read or in the sites he visited could have prepared him for the sheer different types of magic the Parlour offered its students. It wasn’t just the mysterious tattoos on Jurien’s arms—it was so much _more._

  To start, Livia towed them around the main building of the school, a huge building that split off into two separate wings on either side of the central courtyard. It wasn’t the first time Erin had seen something like it, but it was the most impressive. The Parlour gave the catholic churches back on Earth a run for their money. From there, the guide led them behind the massive main hall to the other buildings around the back; immediately Erin noticed these buildings were much newer, built for practicality rather than style. There were heaps of different buildings that made up the campus, too many for them to visit in one day; Livia pointed to each one individually, naming off their faculty for any of the group to visit afterward if they wanted. For each faculty, the building seemed to have its own unique style—the health-magic building, named the Apothecary, was brightly lit, modern and surrounded by lush trees, beckoning and friendly with equally bright students walking through its hospital-like doors. In contrast, across the walkway the necromancy building, the Chamber of Thaumaturgy, was just a big mausoleum overgrown with thorny vines and dying trees, dark but no less happy students trawling through hefty grimoires near the building’s entrance. The matter-manipulation ‘Lounge’—as Livia put it—was the biggest place there besides the main hall; it looked more like a theme park than a place of learning—or even a lounge for that matter—with a tiny water park, forest, a little rocky mountain that half appeared to be on fire and a strange black dome that gave Erin the creeps just looking at it. Even the theme park had a counterpart—the ‘Psionic Temple’, Livia said. It wasn’t a temple so much as a casino-like building that had the theme of a traditional temple. Erin glanced at Morgan just in time to catch his green face as he stared at the building full of psychic, telekinetic and other mind-manipulating students that Erin didn’t yet know the name of.

    “Why do you drag me along to these things?” Morgan grumbled, but his voice wasn’t angry.

    “You know you love me,” Erin answered with a light punch to his brother’s shoulder as Livia continued the tour.

  The last building the guide showed them was the one that caught Erin’s eye the most. It was by far the most modern of all the buildings, a great white hall with sleek, silver, metal filigree that criss-crossed along every surface, like a stylish cage.

    “What do they teach here…?” Erin said aloud without realising.

    “That’s… We call it the Recondite Hall,” Livia answered.

  Erin flushed slightly at having been heard. The guide continued as though she hadn’t noticed Erin’s discomfort, to which Erin was immensely grateful. “You could say it’s for the… well no student is a problem student, they just need the right teacher, but we put the ones with exceptional talents here. Private tutelage that require a building to be destroyed, or students that don’t fit in with other groups, things like that, they usually study here. But,” She stopped suddenly as a student came out through Recondite’s entrance, grabbing him by the hand and towing him back toward the group. Erin gasped.

    “—the best students usually come from here,” Livia continued.

  The group stared at him in wonder and awe.

  The man tipped his hat. “I’m way too old to be a student, but good luck to all you kids,” Jurien said.

 

   Livia patted Jurien lightly on the back. “Tell them about yourself.”

    “Ah, well, I err… I’m a private officer of the JNDB,” he paused as the group chatted with excitement, “and I was, yeah I was a Recondite kid, but don’t let the place’s rep cloud ya’ judgement. The best kids come from here—look at me.”

  The group murmured their agreement, but Erin thought it a little funny; if they knew what Jurien could actually do, they’d probably change their minds.

  In the lapse that followed as the group chatted to each other, Erin stepped through the crowd toward Jurien, then paused. Jurien was dipped close to Livia’s shoulder, his expression serious and tense as he whispered in her ear.

    “Is something wrong?” Erin asked as he approached the two of them without thinking.

  They broke apart too quickly, like a pair of startled birds. “What can I help you with, young man?” Livia asked hastily.

    “It’s alright, Liv I know this kid,” Jurien said with a smile that was a little too tight. “Glad ya’ could make it.”

  Erin dismissed the pair; he could always ask his brother about it later. “Same here, glad you invited me.”

  Livia glanced between Erin and Jurien, “Juri, do you know this young man?”

    “Course’ I do—I recommended him.”

  Livia started, “Y-you did?”

    “Yup. Got high hopes for the boy. Well, best be leaving.” He patted Erin on the shoulder, then turned back to Livia, “Tell me if you see… the thing.”

  Livia nodded, and Jurien left, his pace quickening the further away he got from the hall.

    “Gentlemen,” Livia said, glancing quickly between the pair of brothers before she addressed the rest of the group. “Change of plans, everyone. From here on you’re all free to wander the campus as you like—we’ll meet back in the courtyard in two hours for the final show. Students have prepared some trial classes for all of you in the main building so please, enjoy yourselves.” With that Livia left the group in much the same manner Jurien did, though in the opposite direction.

  Erin wasted no time turning to Morgan, “The hell was that?”

    “They… lost something, I think,” Morgan said as he glanced around Recondite Hall.

    “Lost what?” Erin asked.

    “A person. A girl. What was the name they said… Naiya, I think? Seemed pretty important, to stop the tour and everything.”

    “Hmm…” Erin said with a slightly mischievous smile.

  Morgan frowned. “You want to look for this girl, don’t you?”

    “Yup.”

    “And there’s nothing I can do to stop you?”

    “Nope.”

  Morgan sighed, but it came out more like a growl.

    “Do you know what she looked like?” Erin asked.

  Morgan scrunched up his eyes in concentration. “Erm, yeah she had…white…hair? I think? That’s all I got—they weren’t really thinking about what she looked like, just where she is.”

    “That’ll hafta’ do,” Erin said as he took Morgan’s hand and broke away from the group that was still trying to decide what to do for the next couple of hours.

  They wandered around the perimeter of Recondite Hall, but couldn’t actually go inside. They then wandered around the entrance of the next closest building, the Lounge—it was far too big and intimidating for Erin to muster the courage to go inside—then around the Psionic Temple and the other campus buildings Livia had shown them. Erin took the opportunity to memorise every building they saw—he didn’t yet know which faculty he’d fit into in the future, but he wanted to be prepared.

   No matter where they went, they couldn’t find the mystery girl, Naiya. Plenty of people had white hair, but Morgan told Erin he couldn’t see Naiya’s name in any of their minds.

    “Dammit,” Erin swore.

    “Whoa there,” Morgan said, hand shading his sensitive eyes as he searched around parts of the campus they hadn’t yet visited. “Don’t fucking swear.”

  By way of answer Erin stuck out his tongue and gave Morgan two of his middle fingers, but his older brother didn’t see—he was pointing at the one building other than the main hall that they hadn’t yet visited.

    “What’s that thing?”

  Erin followed his brother’s gaze.

  How had he missed it until then?

  It was a tower, almost medieval, and it was the tallest building on the entire site. There was no way he hadn’t seen it until then—it was impossible to miss. But he had. Erin glanced away and back to the building—he couldn’t see it in his periphery at all. It just…disappeared. If he looked away from the tower long enough, he nearly forgot what he was doing there in the first place. If his brother hadn’t pointed it out, Erin doubted he’d _ever_ have seen the tower—he actually might have _already_ seen it and just forgotten.

    “That’s weird,” Erin said.

    “What is?”

    “I—I didn’t notice it until you pointed it out.”

    “The tower? I thought you were avoiding it on purpose.”

  Erin turned to his brother, mouth agape. “You mean you can _see_ that thing perfectly fine?”

  It was Morgan’s turn to be stunned. “You mean you… _can’t_?”

  Erin took off running toward the tower by way of answer, Morgan following close behind. It was right behind Recondite Hall, and despite the fact that the hall itself was massive, the tower hovered far above it like a sentinel watching over the entire school. The closer the pair got to the tower, the thinner the crowd of people became, until it was just the two of them standing at the foot of the monolith.

  It was bigger up close.

  Made of the same grey brick as the main hall, Erin had to crane his neck up high just to see the top of the building. Besides the simple black marble door, there was only a single ornate window high up near the tower’s roof, from which Erin could see a soft golden glow. Despite how deserted and neglected the tower felt, the place was… spotless. No filth littered the ground, no vines grew on the tower walls, the bricks looked well-maintained all the way up the side of the building; Erin couldn’t even see a single drop of bird poop on the grey brick.

  It was eerie, and it left a strange, unsettling feeling in the pit of Erin’s stomach.

  His brother had it worse.

 

     “Erin,” Morgan said distantly. Erin glanced back sharply to see Morgan lagging way behind, like he had hit an invisible wall. “We should go.”

  In the back of his mind Erin agreed, but he wanted to get to the bottom of the tower even more. “Why?”

  Morgan said nothing for a moment. He was staring— _glaring,_ really—at the window emanating its soft golden glow. “Because I said so, let’s go.”

    “…No,” Erin said defiantly. “It’s just a _tower,_ what’s it gonna’ do, fall on us?”

  To prove this point, Erin took the last few steps to the tower’s door and before he could stop himself, before Morgan could stop him, he grabbed the warm handle and tugged it open.

    “ _No…!”_ Morgan shouted behind him, too late.

  Erin froze.

  Morgan froze behind him.

 

  Sitting on bottom of the stone steps was—a girl.

  A girl with white hair.


	7. The Things We Do for Love

****

  The girl was crying.

No one said anything for several seconds until Erin’s manners kicked in.

    “O-O-Oh I’m s-so sorry we’llleaveyoualonebye!” he slammed the door but didn’t immediately let go of the handle.

    “Ooooooh my god what did I do—”

    “Erin—”

    “—ohh no, no, how _embarrassing—”_

    “Erin _that_ was Naiya.”

  Erin paused for several seconds, breathing heavily, hand still wrapped tightly around the door handle.

  He pulled it open suddenly, startling both Morgan and the girl inside. She hastily wiped her cheek with her sleeve as Erin clambered inside—

            —and tripped.

  He fell face-first on the concrete at Naiya’s feet, in spectacular fashion as he still had his right hand wrapped around the door’s handle.

  Morgan snickered, but hastily helped his brother to his feet whilst trying to supress his laughter.

  Again, no one said anything for several seconds as Erin dusted himself off uneasily, every limb screaming out in protest.

  Then, the girl began to laugh.

  It started as tiny giggles she tried to hide behind her overly large sleeve, but she couldn’t hide it for long—eventually she was sucking in great gulps of air, tears streaming down her cheeks as her laughter echoed up through the stairwell of the tower. She snorted a few times, and that only seemed to set her off more.

  As she dabbed at her tears, Erin realised she was really quite pretty, even with puffy eyes and a red nose. Her hair was a fascinating shade of white, like powdered snow, and Erin noticed her ears were tapered like an elf’s. Her skin seemed to glow from within, but it was an odd shade Erin had never seen before—if he didn’t look too close, she might have been able to pass for human, but once he did he noticed a slight greyish cast to it.

  Naiya began settling down enough for her to make coherent sentences.

 

    “Wow, I haven’t laughed like that in _ages._ Thanks.”

  Erin was a little off-balance. “Don’t… mention it…?”

    “These lips are sealed,” she said as she crossed her fingers into an x in front of her lips. Her eyes were an icy shade of blue, nearly silver, and they glittered brilliantly in the darkness of the tower.

    “Are you Naiya?” Morgan asked from behind Erin. Though he’d helped Erin to his feet, he was already back outside the tower’s walls.

  Naiya sobered up quickly at her name. “Who’s asking?”

    “We’re not with the school,” Erin quickly reassured. “We just—we just wanted—”

    “Wanted what?” Naiya asked as she jumped to her feet, body tense and defensive.

  Morgan turned to his brother, “Yeah, wanted _what,_ Erin?”

  Erin’s brain was going into critical meltdown. “I-I don’t… really… know…”

    “You don’t _know_?” Naiya demanded, tone rising.  
    “We h-heard the teachers talking about you, and I thought… I dunno’, I thought you might have needed…help?”

  Naiya was stunned. “Help…? Why? Why would you go through all the trouble?”

    “He heard a pretty girl’s name and came running to the rescue, just thank the poor kid. You _were_ crying,” Morgan said jokingly, trying to lift the mood.

  Erin turned beet-red, but Naiya didn’t bat a pale lash. “Is that true?”

    “I-I-I… maybe,” Erin replied, looking anywhere but at her eyes.

  Naiya stared at him for several seconds, then her gazed softened. “I believe you.”

    “W-what? Just like that?”

    “You can’t fake _that_ face,” she said with a grin.

 

***

 

    “So why were you in that creepy-ass tower anyway?” Morgan asked as the three of them slowly began walking back toward the main campus. His relief was evident the further away from the tower they got—Erin desperately wanted to ask what his problem was with it, but didn’t think he’d get a straight answer.

  Naiya struggled to answer, “I can’t really talk about it to outsiders…”

Morgan didn’t answer that, and after a moment Erin figured out why—he didn’t need to. Naiya seemed to come to a decision on her own. “Well, I guess I can say, I’m needed for something _reaaaally_ important, but… It’s pretty silly and childish now that I think about it, but I guess I was… rebelling?”

  Erin frowned. “If the school’s making you do something you don’t wanna—”

    “No, that isn’t it; I kind of volunteered for it—nobody’s making me do anything. It’s just the stress, I think. It’s finally getting to me.”

    “You a senior?” Morgan asked.

    “I… guess you could say that,” Naiya answered. Erin felt a pang of anger for his brother—he didn’t need to ask her that when he could just read her mind. She was being vague enough as it was—wait, why did he care in the first place? Erin mentally shook himself; what Naiya thought was her business—plus…he could always ask his brother later.

  As the trio walked around Recondite Hall and made their way back into the throng of significantly thinner people than before, Morgan was the first to catch sight of Livia. He stepped in front of Naiya, walking backwards whilst shielding her from view. Erin wished he could be so… cool and think of stuff like that whilst looking blasé doing something that ridiculous.

    “You sure its okay for them to see you?” Morgan asked.

  Naiya took a heavy breath. “Yeah, it should be fine.”

  The moment Morgan stepped out of her way, Livia spotted Naiya at once and came racing over.

    “Naiya, sweet Empress! We’ve been looking _everywhere_ for you…!” Livia touched her cheeks and hair like a doting mother, but it came across more like a buyer appraising their goods. “The Lecomte’s have been waiting for _hours—”_

    “I know, I know, I’m sorry. I’ll start straight away, if everything’s ready.”

    “We’ve _been_ ready, we just needed you…” Without even a second glance at the two brothers, Livia towed Naiya away by the shoulders, but not before Naiya twisted out of her grasp and came running back. She took a pen from out of her pocket and grabbed Erin’s hand before he could stop her.

    “I think you’re a cool dude. If you end up going here, hit me up sometime,” she said as she finished scribbling on his hand, kissed him on the cheek, and raced back to Livia. 

  Once Erin was able to breathe again, and Morgan had stopped glowering at him, he glanced at the hot-pink writing on the back of his hand. It was a series of numbers, underneath a name: Na’ya.

    “Na…ya…” Erin sounded out loud. He caught Morgan grinning toothily at him and he punched him in the shoulder, hard. “What was she so late for anyway? And why didn’t she tell us?” he asked expectantly as he pretended his knuckles hadn’t punched a solid brick wall.

  Morgan placed his fingers in an x against his lips.

    “These lips are sealed,” he said with a smile.

 

  Before Erin could think of something to say at that, Morgan’s phone began ringing.

    “Hello—” Morgan couldn’t get in another word as the voice on the other end of the line began rapidly—and angrily—shouting across the line. Morgan listened, the crease between his eyebrows becoming more and more pronounced as the conversation continued. He was only able to supply the occasional ‘yes’ and ‘got it’ before the line went dead without even a goodbye.

    “Who was it?” Erin asked as Morgan hastily stowed away his phone.

  His brother let out a great sigh, taking off his glasses so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “That was Mel—”

    “Oh-oh.”

    “—yeah, and we’ve got a problem. _I’ve_ got a problem.”

  Morgan couldn’t see the puzzled look on Erin’s face, but Erin imagined he could hear it in his head just fine.

  He glanced up, his mouth a thin line, “Dahlia’s in trouble.”

 

 

***

 

  He didn’t want to leave his little brother behind, but Dahlia’s safety—and his own—was the priority in Morgan’s mind.

    _I’ll make it up to him later,_ he appeased as he raced from the school to the portal just beyond the gates. Just as he flashed through, the dizzying buzz of portal magic thrumming through his veins, Morgan glanced around the Parlour—the place really was smack-down right in the middle of nowhere; there was nothing around the school as far as the eye could see, just a vast ocean and the pink of sunset. He couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a lawsuit waiting to happen.

    Morgan barely paid attention to where the portal dropped him off. The only thing he could hear was Mel’s voice ringing in his head. It wasn’t what she said that had him particularly worried—it was her tone.

 

    _‘Dahlia’s in trouble. If she gets hurt—if something happens to her I swear Morgan… Please keep my sister safe.’_

Morgan was biting his lips as the elevator cycled through the numbers toward his apartment. Was it always so slow?

    “Finally,” Mel said as he pushed through the elevator door on his father’s floor. The office penthouse was filled with gloomy and anxious looks from the group of _Akatsuki_ members gathered there. Something was seriously wrong, and Morgan didn’t need to read the group’s thoughts or smell the anxiety in the air to understand that.

  It was his father’s face that sent a real pang of worry up his spine.

 

    “Morgan,” was all Killian said. The frown lines around the older man’s face were etched deeper than Morgan had ever seen it. His usually immaculate blond hair and tidy suit were both ruffled and in disarray. He hadn’t seen his father this unsettled for a while.

  Morgan glanced at all the people gathered, “What’s… going on?”

  The room was silent, an orchestra of anxiously beating hearts the only sound. Killian was the first to answer, “Your friend has gotten herself mixed up in some serious shit. We think… well we believe that she’s been…”

    “Dad, spit it out.”

  Mel interjected, her patience finally wearing thin, “She’s been kidnapped by another gang.”

  The world tilted just slightly. A cascade of emotions welled up inside Morgan’s chest—worry and fear mostly, but most dominant of all—anger. It was a familiar feeling, and one Morgan allowed to rest in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t need the others; they wouldn’t get him out of this situation.

    “Which gang?” he asked, steeling his voice.

    “ _Orchidea_ ,” Killian answered. “We haven’t really had any problems with them before. Deals were always made quick and easy, no problems, but—”

    “When did they take her? _Why_?” Morgan interrupted.

    “We aren’t really sure,” Mel supplied. “She didn’t say anything before she was taken, but this was bound to happen…”

  Morgan felt inclined to agree. But… he was partly to blame for this— _mostly_ to blame for this. He’d _let_ Dahlia get closer and closer to the _Akatsuki,_ to the whole underworld. He’d given her contacts, taught her over the past few months how the business worked, how to behave. He didn’t… he had no idea she’d gotten herself _this_ mixed up in all of it.

  How could he have let this happen?

  Morgan paced the room, feeling like a caged animal. “Where is _Orchidea_ now? Have they made any demands yet?”

    “That’s the strange thing.” A tall, heavily muscled man with a mohawk shouldered his way to the three of them, his gentle hazel eyes creased with concern. “They haven’t even contacted us at all. The only way we know something’s wrong is because we got an anonymous tip, probably from one of _Orchidea’s_ members.” Bronco took out his smartphone, showing the group a screenshot of the message. It was just like he said—there was no sender, just a short, hastily written message saying Dahlia’s been taken in by _Orchidea._

There was no demand for a ransom, no orders… Morgan even felt that the ‘taken in’ was awfully ambiguous. Taken in how?

    “It’s not just Dahlia,” Bronco said uneasily. “I think there might be something wrong with _Orchidea_ too.”

  Realisation dawned at Bronco’s words. “It might… be a trap,” Morgan said slowly.

  The group grew silent, pondering that. Mel wasn’t impressed; she glanced around the room, incredulous. “So? That’s my _sister_. I don’t give a shit if it’s a trap,” she grabbed Morgan’s shirt, urging him forward, “You _will_ get her back, right?”

  She hadn’t phrased it like a question, but Morgan answered anyway. He wasn’t answering her, but making it clear to everyone else in the room. “Yeah, I will.”

  A myriad of expressions crossed Mel’s face, but she settled on begrudging hope. “You promise you’ll get her back to me? Alive?”

    “I promise.”

  Her voice was beginning to crack. She glanced down, creating a small private space for just the two of them as she asked, “And you’ll _never_ let this happen to her again?”

 

   Morgan leaned in close, his lips hovering over Mel’s forehead.

 

    “I swear… on whatever human part is left in me I’ll keep her safe.”


	8. An Unkindness of Ravens

 

  Morgan’s palms were sweating. He clutched his hands close to his torso in his jacket pockets, as though he was protecting them from the night air. Which wasn’t physically possible for him anymore; the fact was he was so profoundly angry, he could no longer control the boiling blood in his veins—the moment he brought his hands into the open air, they would start to steam. He was lucky it was only his hands—there was no way he could enter _Orchidea_ and keep his face hidden.

 

  He’d never actually been to the place before.

  _Orchidea_ looked more like a bunch of boxes stacked atop each other, with holes cut into their sides for windows. It wasn’t even a perfect stack; each level was slightly off from the one below it, like someone hastily threw the place together. If minimalist was what they were going for, they achieved it with this ridiculous building. The only benefit Morgan could see was that the place was situated right on the edge of a hill that looked out onto the Jotean Sea.

 

  A hurricane of salty sea air blasted across the hill, whipping Morgan’s hair into his eyes as he approached the front door. He couldn’t see inside the building at all—the only indication someone might be inside was the soft golden glow emanating from the cracks of the window shutters.

  Morgan couldn’t… hear any thoughts.

  He could certainly hear a parade of heartbeats beyond the building’s walls. He could hear breathing, both relaxed and tense, hear domestic sounds like the slamming of doors or the clink of a glass, but… he could hear no thoughts whatsoever.

    _Kitsune…?_ he wondered. They were one of the only few people he’d met whose thoughts he couldn’t read. _Please don’t let it be them again._

  That theory was debunked the moment he heard Dahlia’s voice.

He couldn’t tell what she was saying—he could only hear the melody of her voice—but he could _sense_ her inside. She wasn’t screaming—thank the gods—and she didn’t seem to be in pain. Rather than draw it out any longer, Morgan slammed his fist against the door a few times, then impatiently waited.

 

  He didn’t wait long.

  Not one second after the last knock the door slowly creaked open, just an eye and a tangled mess of blond hair visible through the crack in the door.

 

    “Look man, now isn’t really a good time—”

    “Let me in.”

    “Dude, I’d be glad to help, just not right—”

    “ _Let. Me. In._ ” Morgan wasn’t asking. The hit of compulsion rolled easily off his tongue before he could help himself, and the man on the other side closed the door, pulled back the chain and hastily opened it before Morgan could even realise what he’d done.

    “Come right on in,” the man said in a dreamy voice, his eyes not quite seeing Morgan as he stepped across the threshold.

  Stepping into the house was like jumping off a boat into raging seas—the voices rushed in like a tidal wave.

 

    _I’m gonna die—_

_Why are they here…?_

_They haven’t killed us yet—_

_Who sent them?_

_Someone, please—_

_We made a mistake, we shouldn’t have worked with them—_

_Someone snitched…!_

_The girl?_

Morgan bit his lip, willing the voices into silence. He didn’t have time to filter the thoughts into something he could understand.

  Not even two seconds upon entering—he already had a knife to his throat.

    “Whoa there,” he said slowly, putting his hands in the air.

 

    “Why are you here?”

  In the corner of his eye Morgan glanced at the woman holding the knife dangerously close to his skin. She’d been hiding in the shadows beyond the front door, and now she stepped into the light—Morgan felt his heart sink just a little. The first thing that caught his eye was how _powerful_ she looked; sculpted muscle occupied every surface, like a statue carved out of marble; she could crush him with her thighs alone—not that Morgan could look down to see her thighs, but his imagination worked just fine. Her skin was tanned bronze, covered head-to-toe with scars that would have otherwise made her strikingly beautiful but instead, with her closely cropped hair and severe expression, only made her cold and militant.

    “ _Why are you here?_ ” she said more forcefully, nearly brushing the knife against his Adam’s apple.

    “I—” He couldn’t finish the thought…

  …Because she had none. Mouth slightly agape, Morgan could only stare at this Amazonian woman whose thoughts remained a mystery, both inside and out.

    “Hiding something?” the woman said after Morgan didn’t immediately answer.

    “N-no. I’m here—” he glanced at the anxious faces of the people amongst sofas and leaning against walls; some tense, some frozen in fear like Medusa’s statues “—on business.”

  More still were the other people dressed like the woman, with severe expressions and bodies covered in scars. As well as, Morgan was just noticing in dismay, tan light-armour. One of these strange, armoured people finished chatting with someone undoubtedly from _Orchidea—_ they looked like they were about to vomit—and came to join the woman.

    “Are you with _them?_ ” the new woman asked, indicating the _Orchidea_ behind her with a flick of a thumb. She was tall and graceful but wiry, with long black hair and a single scar across her nose.

    ‘ _Them’?_ Morgan wondered. It was at that moment he noticed a black insignia on the women’s arms—a flame? No, a bird, with a curving, menacing beak and ruffled feathers wrapped around its neck. He didn’t recognise it, and didn’t recognise the weapons the women had in their belts, or the strange, heavy accents they both spoke with.

    “…yes,” he said after a moment. “I just—stepped out for a bit.”

  The muscular woman glanced him up and down, sending a ripple of dread down Morgan’s spine—despite himself.

    “…Alright. Join your friends then. We will interview you soon.” She completely dismissed him, like swatting away a fly, and the pair stalked off—not before the taller of the women gave Morgan a parting smirk.

    “Are you fucked in the brain or something, man?”

  Morgan turned to find the guy with the messy blond hair who had opened the door for him. It seemed like the compulsion had worn off; the guy was all but glaring at him.

    “I might be,” Morgan answered.

  The man shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come here man, its bad news.”

  Morgan glanced at the armour-clad soldiers around him, but they all seemed occupied with the ‘interviews’ they were conducting on the _Orchidea’s_ members. He took the man by the shoulder and steered him to an abandoned corner of the room, where he dropped his voice to a near whisper.

    “The fuck is going on here? Who are these people?”

    “You don’t know?” the man said, incredulous. “And you came _here?_ ”

    “Yes, moving along.”

    “They’re—well I don’t know what they’re _called,_ but I think they’re holy knights or—”

    “Holy _what? Here?_ In _Jotai_ _City_?” Morgan couldn’t believe it. Jotai City was famed on its ability to cater to nearly every member of its society, including demons and monsters normally ostracised in other cultures—the notion that holy knights were roaming the streets was a scary one, especially if they were hunting down members of the public. “What do they want with you guys?”

  The man shook his head. “They think we’ve been, what did she say, ‘fraternizing’ with the enemy?”

    “What enemy?”

    “The vampires—”

    “ _Which_ vampires?”

  The man cupped a hand over his mouth, like he was afraid he’d invoke the monsters if they could hear him: “The _Vorvintti._ ”

 

  Morgan’s world spun.

  The _Vorvintti_.

  Again.

  They could not— _would not_ leave him alone, let him live out the rest of his eternity in peace.

 Morgan didn’t even bother to confirm it; the man’s thoughts reaffirmed it, as did the thoughts of a few of the people there who had overheard their conversation.

  A distant voice reached his ears, shattering through his quiet disbelief.

 

    “I’m telling you, I don’t know anything!”

  A resounding _smack_ echoed from up the stairs leading on to the second floor, followed by a yelp of pain.

  It was Dahlia.

  He was halfway up the stairs before the pained yelp had even finished echoing across the walls, on the second floor between one of Dahlia’s panicked heartbeats and the next.

  It was a testament to the soldiers’ skill that they didn’t even freeze at his approach—he was already being pinned to the ground in a trained soldier’s manoeuvre. Morgan preferred to think he let the soldier subdue him, but the immense strength and skill behind it kind of spoilt the fun.

    “Alright, alright!” he said from beneath the soldier’s arm, palms hovering above the ground. He’d lost his cool for a split second, had barged in without any kind of _plan…_

 _I kind of deserve this,_ he thought.

    “…Morgan?”

  There was a crack in Dahlia’s voice—the heartbreak, desperation and disbelief sent a stab of pain into Morgan’s heart.

    “…You shouldn’t be here…!” Dahlia said.

  Morgan strained against his captor suddenly without thinking, and was rewarding with a rough shove back to the ground. “I-I couldn’t just—”

 

    “Quiet!” his captor said, forcing his face down into the carpet.

 

    “Do you know this man?” Morgan heard a voice near Dahlia say.

  Dahlia cringed. She couldn’t lie, not after what she had just said. “Yes. He’s just— a friend. He’s harmless, please. Let him go.”

  The person holding Dahlia broke off, whispering to someone else near them. “Fine, we will interview him then—”

    “Wait!”

  Morgan swore. He recognised that voice.

  The woman with the close-cropped hair thundered up the stairs, followed—presumably—by the taller woman. “Did you not see how he moved?” she asked.

  No one said a thing. Morgan guessed they were probably shaking their heads; his own still being forced into the ground, his glasses digging into his nose.

  The woman continued, and Morgan could distinctly hear the sneer in her voice. “He moved far too quickly for a human, not one without augmentation, anyway.”

    “He arrived just now,” the black-haired woman supplied. “I do not trust him.”

  The person holding Dahlia captive must have indicated something to Morgan’s captor, because he was suddenly being hoisted to his knees, once again another knife presented to his throat. Though he had to hold his head away from the knife’s sharp edge, finally he could see the one issuing orders.

  A gruff looking someone—Morgan couldn’t tell their gender—stood over Dahlia, who was bound by thick, black ropes against a chair. Her cheek was bruised, and she was crying, but other than that she didn’t seem injured. The leader met Morgan’s eyes, their eyes black as coal and equally cold.

    “If you are a friend of hers,” they said in a voice both soft and dripping with venom, “then maybe you can tell me why she stinks of _Vorvintti_ blood.”

    _Me,_ Morgan wanted to shout. _It’s because of me, it’s all my fault._

Dahlia couldn’t move her head without attracting her captor’s attention, but she shouted inside her head, as loud as she could, _Don’t tell them anything…!_

  He was pressed for time, Dahlia’s life was in peril—his mind whirled, searching for an excuse, until he found one. “We—we’re not with _Orchidea._ We’re with the _Akatsuki._ ”

  The soldiers whispered to one another, their expressions surprised before their training kicked in and they schooled their features into calm indifference.

  The leader was the only one that remained incredulous. “ _Akatsuki?_ That mediocre gang the _Vorvintti_ love to torment so much?”

  Morgan nodded, even as he seethed inside. They weren’t _that_ bad… they just couldn’t seem to catch a break.

    “Their base might still reek of those monsters,” the woman with the close-cropped hair said.

  The taller woman with the black hair took out a knife and twirled it between her fingers, “That doesn’t explain what we saw.”

    “What are you hiding?” Morgan’s captor said, as they dug the knife’s edge into his skin.

 

  Pain.

  Burning, blinding, _searing_ pain burst across the place the knife touched Morgan’s skin. He screamed out loud, like he was being branded alive—a sensation he was all too familiar with, and didn’t want a repeat of.

  Then, the pain was gone.

  Instead, he was being shoved away, scrambling88iaji to his feet in the middle of the room, clutching his neck. Steam and heat obscured his vision, fogged his glasses; the wound sizzled, then slowly, so slowly, begun to heal.

  This time, the soldiers did freeze. Then, one by one, they took out their weapons and surrounded Morgan in a tight, neat circle. The leader looked furious as they came to join their men.

    “I was not aware the _Akatsuki_ were harbouring monsters,” they said.

  Morgan was nervous, and in pain. He hadn’t even considered the danger to _his own_ life—the hunting of monsters and demons always seemed so far away and improbable to him that only until now, with all these holy knights with their holy weapons around him, did he realise they posed a very real and very immediate threat.

  The soldier’s weapons were metal, but they emitted a golden glow that became sharp edges and blades of light—the better to cut into demon flesh.

    “O-of course, we take in…anyone…” He was glancing around the group, but there was no opening, no place free of the golden blades whose light stung Morgan’s eyes. A tight feeling of… fear grew in Morgan’s chest, panic beginning to take hold once he couldn’t find a way out.

    “And your friend,” the leader said, indicating Dahlia with the tip of their knife, “is she a demon too?”

    “Nobody’s a demon!” Morgan growled, stepping back. A stung at his arm told him he’d walked into one of the soldier’s blades—the wound sizzled like the one on his neck, as though the blades could brand his skin. He clutched at his arm and that only made the leader’s smile widen.

    “Then explain why these blessed weapons hurt you? They are completely harmless to humans.”

   To demonstrate this—or more likely to them, to unmask yet another demon—the leader grabbed Dahlia’s hair, yanked her head back, and sliced the blade across her neck.

    “ _No!_ ” Morgan screamed, but he needn’t have bothered. Dahlia’s eyes opened slowly as the leader stepped back, disappointed. There was nothing there—Dahlia was fine.

    _Of course she’s fine, of course,_ Morgan thought with relief. Dahlia’s words were only now finally settling in, _‘You shouldn’t have come’._ What good was he here if he was only getting her, and everyone else, in trouble?

 

    “Leave her,” Morgan said. “She doesn’t know anything, she’s _human._ Leave her alone.”

  The leader turned back, their face resigned. They sighed. “No, she does not seem to know anything useful. _You,_ on the other hand, are full of surprises.” They flicked their blade toward someone standing behind Morgan, and once again he was pushed to his knees, this time a _group_ of soldiers shoved their golden blades near his neck.

    “If _this_ touches your skin,” someone sneered behind him, “It will hurt a lot more than just blessed metal.”

    “Yes, I advise you to cooperate,” the leader said as they went to stand beside Dahlia. “Or you might find your friend will leave here with less fingers than she came.”

  Morgan grimaced in pain and anger.

  The leader smiled in response. They indicated someone standing off to the side, and the soldier came forward holding a black ring.

    “Is that a mood ring?” Morgan asked before he could stop himself.

  The leader stopped smirking. “A mood what? No, wretched demon, it is an ancient and powerful device we of the _Ravens_ use to discover what type of creature—”

    “It’s a mood ring.”

  They spluttered, their face growing furious like a child on a playground. “It is not a—put the damn thing on him!”

  A soldier held their glowing blade toward Morgan’s hand as another pulled his palm from behind his back and shoved the ring roughly onto his forefinger.

  Nothing happened.

  The leader looked puzzled, “That is strange—”

  The ring suddenly grew hot, like it was sucking in the heat around it, and begun to glow, like metal in a furnace. First it was a deep red, the colour of blood, then it grew brighter and brighter—orange, then yellow, finally settling on a blinding white that was painful to look at.

  The soldiers suddenly released Morgan, falling back. Morgan was too preoccupied with the glowing mood ring on his finger, blisteringly hot like it was about to explode. He tugged it off then threw it at the leader’s feet in a panic, even as the leader looked at him in bewilderment.

  Morgan soothed the aching skin on his finger, glancing up. The soldiers were still in a line, but they had put a bit of distance between Morgan and themselves. They had weapons in both hands now, and their faces were tense.

    “…Was it something I said?” Morgan asked the leader, knowing full well why the soldiers had leapt back so quickly.

  The leader had a strange glint in their eye, part nervousness, but also… anticipation. “I guess I should consider it an honour to be lied to by one such as yourself, wretch.”

    “‘Such as myself’…?”

    “The mood ri—the device has not glowed like that in years, not since the last time that creature wore it—”

  Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “‘Creature’?”             

 

    “That _Vorvintti_ beast.”


	9. Smells Like the Holy Spirit

****

  A thousand times.

  It felt like he’d done this same routine a thousand times. Morgan had the overwhelming feeling of being an animal trapped in a cage—first came the realisation he wasn’t quite human, then the discovery that he was a monster to be feared and, in most cases, destroyed. Then they always discovered _what_ he was, who created him, and what followed that was either terror, or in this case—death.

  He was sick of it.

  For once since being turned, since Rafaella had ostracised him from his own species, Morgan felt the divide between himself and the world he used to be a part of.

 

    “Just because I might be one of them, doesn’t mean we keep in touch.” Morgan gritted his teeth as he glanced around the soldier’s significantly looser circle. Some of them gulped when his eyes reached them, but most either refused to meet his gaze altogether or jeered at him from their safe distance away, like they were antagonising a caged lion.

 

    “Humph,” the leader said, tapping their blade repeatedly against their palm. “I do not pretend to know the way of beasts. Nor do I intend to learn.”

  Morgan desperately searched for a way out, some way that involved him and Dahlia getting out _alive._ He started talking, anything to keep the soldiers distracted while he thought of a plan. “So? Who was it? The ‘ _Vorvintti_ beast’ that came before me?”

    _There._

  One of the soldiers was smaller than the rest—a girl, the same age as him, probably younger, who could barely hold the glowing weapon in her hands she was shivering so much. This only confirmed it; they hadn’t expected to run into anything as powerful as a _Vorvintti—_ they weren’t prepared. Morgan imagined if they had brought their entire military might, he wouldn’t still be alive. This girl might just be the key to him getting out alive, but he didn’t like what he might have to do.

    “I do not know her name,”

  At the mention of a ‘her’ Morgan’s mind whirled. He couldn’t be talking about _Rafaella¸_ could he? The odds of that—no, it couldn’t be her.

  The leader only continued, unaware of the sudden tension in Morgan’s shoulders. “She… seemed so harmless. Civilised, almost. If you can believe a demon to be civilised. She _let_ us put the ring on her finger, almost like she knew… The ring burst; it could not handle her power. I was not there, of course; this was over a thousand years ago, so it is said, but the _Ravens_ that were left alive from that day were lucky to be so. She could have crushed them with a single finger, if she had desired.

    “That… _child_ herself an Elder Progenitor.”

  Morgan was only half listening, devoting most of his attention to spotting the weak points in the group, but he froze at this. Elder Progenitor?

    “What’s that? Elder…Progenitor?” he asked.

  The leader looked a little puzzled. “You do not know? And you claim to be _Vorvintti._ Very well—I shall answer you, though you will not live long enough for it to be of much use. As we understand it, Elders are the oldest of the _Vorvintti,_ truly the first of their species to ever be created. Thousands of years old and impossible to kill completely, like their progenitor brethren. I do not understand the dynamics of it, but they seem like glorified ordinary progenitors to me.”

  Morgan felt a little bit of relief at that. He’d killed a progenitor before—it was hard, but not impossible. Though he doubted it would ever come to it, if ever he had to fight an Elder…

    “Although… Perhaps the difference is the fact that some progenitors are not natural.”

  Morgan’s stomach dropped. “You know a lot for someone that doesn’t ‘pretend to know the way of beasts’.”

  The leader’s eyes creased with a smile, catching on to the stiffness in Morgan’s voice. “The better to learn their weaknesses and destroy them. I wonder why this fact bothers you. And why you are so… ignorant to your own wretched species.”

  He’d heard enough. _Had_ enough.

The soldiers slowed to a crawl as Morgan summoned up as much of his _Vorvintti_ strength, speed and awareness as he could. He focused and memorised every placement of weapon and limb in the span of a second, willed power into the muscles of his legs as he took off.

  The group wasn’t prepared. The girl was the least prepared of them all.

He had his arm around her neck in a second, receiving little more than a weak struggle. Snatching the blade in her hand, he threw it across the room before the holy metal could sear his skin; as quick as he threw it still hurt like hell, like touching a hot stove.

    “Anyone moves and I snap her neck.” Anxiety and fear faded, just as he willed his guilt and disgust away, like throwing his emotions in the garbage. It was getting easier; even the guilt at having it get easier was just another emotion he could abandon. They wouldn’t let her die.

  No looks of fear, none of submission, not even a passing glance.

    “Go ahead,” the leader said. “She is weak anyway. We have no need for her.”

  The girl crumpled like wet sand in Morgan’s arms at the leader’s voice, to the point where he was the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground.

  Morgan’s cold indifference broke, a ray of sunshine between stormy clouds. “You wouldn’t—”

    “Why not? See the way she trembles—no amount of training can get rid of such cowardice. You are welcome to her. Let her be your final meal before your demise.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But… what did he expect? They were treating her like fodder, a _tool_ to be used and cast aside. Even worse—he was nothing but a wild animal in their eyes. There was no reasoning with these people, and there was no way he’d get out of this alive. There was no plan he could think of where he’d escape without killing—

  No. No, he mustn’t think like that, like _them._ He _will_ get out of this; no one had to die.

  The girl fell to the ground in a heap once Morgan let her go; like a marionette with cut strings she didn’t even flinch, barely made a sound besides a choked sob.

    “You don’t care at all.” He hadn’t meant it as a question.

  The leader answered anyway. “Not for weaklings. Or demons. If you will not get rid of her, we will do it ourselves—no one outside of the organisation can know our techniques.”

  How many kids like her—how many have they ‘gotten rid of’? Bile, hot and metallic, rose in Morgan’s throat. _They were just children._

  He placed his hand gently on the girl’s head—he hated the flinch she gave in return. Crouching beside her, he whispered into her ear, “When you can, _run._ ” He gave her one more instruction quickly, before the soldiers grew suspicious, then—tore into her neck.

 

  The soldiers were indifferent, though some had smirks; they had expected him to do it. Morgan was lucky he had such long curly hair; what the soldiers couldn’t see was that he hadn’t pierced her skin with his teeth at all. Instead he pretended to bite her, had his lips gently at the side of her neck. He counted down the seconds as the girl’s pulse beat uncomfortably beneath his lips. Gums aching with the urge to bite, stomach rumbling with the proximity, he scrunched his eyes closed as he pretended to gulp, silently wishing he was actually swallowing something, anything, to stop the fire in his throat.

  After an eternity that only lasted a minute, Morgan let the girl fall to the ground, careful to let her body fall in such a way that her neck was turned away from the soldiers, hair framing her flushed cheeks. He wiped his mouth, face still turned away from the soldiers.

    “Well?” Morgan asked after a moment.

  The leader looked unimpressed. “I had thought the girl was low-born, but for her blood to not have affected you at all… I am not surprised.”

  Morgan had to clench his teeth to stop the words from coming.

  The leader dusted off their hands, and said with a tone of finality, “Final words?”

  He glanced at Dahlia’s tear-stained face, softening his voice, “It’s alright; you’ll be fine.”

She nodded, but her tears wouldn’t stop falling. Morgan would see her out of this alive—he had made a promise he intended to keep.

    “Yes, she will be fine, but you will not get out of this alive.

 

    “Kill him.”

 

***

 

  A tension, a palpable change in the atmosphere like the heavy calm that promised a storm.

The air was poised with it just before the _Ravens_ attacked. Morgan felt the change, felt the ripple of battle-energy begin in every soldier surrounding him.

  It was like a switch had been turned, a match had been lit—they attacked in perfect unison, all semblance of fear and anxiety erased just as easily as though Morgan had done it himself.

  But he was prepared for that. His body wasn’t like theirs—it didn’t need a warm up, it didn’t need preparation.

  Instant action and reaction.

A soldier sliced her golden blade across his neck just as one came up behind him to stab into his spine. Another flanked his left side, aiming for his ribs. In a single, fluid motion Morgan gripped the soldier directly in front of him, the closest, and broke her wrist, then flung her into the soldier waiting behind him. But he didn’t stop there—grabbing the arm of the soldier that had been after his spine, he followed the momentum and ploughed the both of them into the soldier aiming for his ribs. The sheer force of the blow sent all three of them sprawling to the ground, but only two of them were dazed, and only one incapacitated all together.

  Morgan didn’t have time to worry about the other one—more soldiers were coming. As deftly as he could manage, he dodged this way and that, broke arms, toes and legs, but tried not to take any lives. He even tried to keep his Sleight, his boiling blood, calm enough not to burn anyone but—

  His concentration was waning.

 

  It wasn’t that there were many of them, just that their level of skill was beyond anything Morgan had dealt with before. These soldiers were _trained_ to take down people like him. The soldiers learnt their lesson after seeing just three of their comrades fall; they danced around him, slicing his exposed skin then falling back for someone else to attack in a perfect rhythm. He was gaining cuts, cuts that burned and made it harder and harder to concentrate, to hold back. If he wasn’t careful he’d have more cuts than his body could heal. If he faltered, for even a second…

  Two soldiers came at him at once, their moves in perfect synchronisation. Morgan didn’t know who to track; they both moved so fluidly, so quickly, like dancers. Just a moment, just a split second for his concentration to wane, was all it took. The pair drew their glowing blades across his ribs, and once he was distracted with the pain, they went for his shoulders, aiming to separate his arms from his torso.

  They got agonisingly close.

Morgan had been momentarily startled by the pain, but as the wounds healed the pain was being replaced by something much more potent—anger.

  Frustration, too. Whipping around he grabbed the wrists aiming for his shoulders and tried to clang the pair together, like pans. But the two—boy and girl, both slight with soft brown curls, twins—were ready, too in synch; they seemed to melt into each other, arms and hands folding like paper before they clasped each other tightly and kicked at his stomach in unison. Morgan let go of their wrists and went, much to his surprise, flying. They were stronger than he had first thought. A few soldiers came forward, attempting to take advantage of the momentary shift in battle, but Morgan was beyond frustrated. Their movements weren’t as fluid or graceful as the pair—he dispatched them quickly, the scent of burning flesh and sizzling blood barely registering in his haze of anger.

  They came at him again, but he’d already seen their routine once. It wouldn’t work a second time. He used their synchronised movements to his advantage, only needing to watch one closely at a time, knowing the other would move much in the same fashion, although he was prepared if that wasn’t the case. They circled him tightly, looking for an opening. Morgan wouldn’t give them one. He grabbed the one on his left, the girl, by the face—he was much taller than she was, his fingers fitting neatly around her skull—and held her in the air like that. This threw off her brother, who stopped with a sharp cry of pain as though he was the one being dangled in the air.

  Only a small twist of his wrist was all it took. The girl’s brother screamed, screamed like he was being tortured. The slowing of the girl’s heartbeats drummed in Morgan’s ears, synching with the heavy beating of his own heart. But as hers grew weaker, his grew stronger; in triumph, his revenge half-sated. The brother charged him with a fierce cry, but he wasn’t thinking, hadn’t planned an attack—the second half of his routine, his misdirection, missing, gone. Morgan silenced him quickly, with a quick jab through his heart.

  It was the first time he had spilt blood since the battle began.

A mistake. Thirst, hunger, rage, anger, satisfaction, desperation—they clambered inside like a storm; through the chaos he tried to tame it all, erase his emotions like he had been learning, but it was too much, _too much._

  One order, one instruction, a single urge—to kill. That was all that remained.

 

  A shuddering cry reached his ears—the girl. She had tried to take off running once the soldier’s numbers had thinned enough, but someone had caught her, cut her off from the exit and was dragging her back. Dispatching two along the way—one, their neck broken, the other, their heart torn, still beating, from their chest—Morgan grabbed the soldier. Their attention broke; they released the girl, and she scrambled away. Morgan barely noticed her, beyond the singing of her heart. Vision red, anger so strong he could taste it like a thing on his tongue, he tore into the soldier’s neck—

  Another mistake.

Holy metal, blessed blood—it made sense. It scorched Morgan’s tongue, burned the skin of his cheek and the delicate flesh of his throat. He spat and spat, wiping his lips; he couldn’t continue, he mustn’t _drink_. But the soldier wasn’t dead yet—he hadn’t pierced them that deeply. Grabbing them by the hair and holding their shoulder, he began to tear—

     “Enough…!”

  Morgan stopped. It was like screaming through water—the leader’s voice barely reached his ears. But there was panic and fear at the edge of Morgan’s consciousness where everywhere else there was only fire. The terror wasn’t his—it was Dahlia’s.

  He looked up, enough of his senses returned to hear the leader, understand what they wanted. He wasn’t all there, but it was enough.

    “Stop…” they said, voice shaking slightly. They had a real blade against Dahlia’s neck this time, not golden light.

  Morgan took note of the remaining hearts beating in his ears. Six, including the leader, Dahlia and his own. Just three of the twenty or so soldiers remained.

    “Let us leave and we will spare both your lives.”

  It was a cowardly move, Morgan could at least understand that. So did the three remaining soldiers; they looked at their leader incredulous.

    “You will let this one… _live?_ ” one asked.

  The leader’s eye twitched. It was then Morgan realised their plan. He tried to speak through his heavy breaths, but couldn’t form words. He swallowed, tried again, spoke between his fangs, “You want to get help. Come back.”

  The leader didn’t say anything, couldn’t lie in front of their underlings. That confirmed it.

    “Captain?” another asked, unsure.

    “I…”

  Morgan saw the decision before he thought even the captain decided it. The captain’s wrist was in his between one of Dahlia’s panicked heartbeats and the next. Another breath and he’d plunged the dagger into the captain’s chest, his wrist wrapped tightly around theirs, like he was guiding them to their death. Everyone was too surprised to move, too shocked. Especially the captain.

  They glanced down at the dagger protruding from between their fingers, their face only one of complete surprise. Least of all surprised was Morgan himself—he hadn’t expected to move so quickly, stop the captain in time. The decision to kill them wasn’t one he expected, either, but he knew the consequences if he didn’t.

  To reiterate this, the three soldiers remaining glanced at each other uneasily, their faces covered with a sheen of sweat as they hoisted their blades at Morgan’s approach.

  He couldn’t let them live. Couldn’t let them escape with the knowledge of what he was capable of—couldn’t let them return with a trained army of holy knights hungry for his life.

  They knew it, too. The three gave each other a resigned nod, then charged Morgan together. He took the fight seriously, took their sacrifice seriously.

  He killed them seriously, with quick, painless deaths.

 

  Blood rushed heavily in his ears; his breath was ragged not by exhaustion, but the bombard of emotions and sensations roiling beneath his skin.

 

    “Morgan…?” Dahlia asked uneasily. “What have you done?”


	10. Will Heavy Expectations Be on The Exam?

 

  Were exams always so nerve-wracking?

  Erin followed the crowd of students across the Parlour grounds, careful not to trip on legs that felt like jelly. His stomach wasn’t in any better shape—there were butterflies having a rave in there, and he was sweating buckets.

  Never in Erin’s educational career had he needed to take an exam to enter a new school. His father’s money could quite literally unlock doors to places ordinary people could only dream of—this included rich, elite prep schools. As much as it was terrifying, it was a fresh perspective for Erin to find himself in.

 

  The crowd filed into the main hall, where Erin and his older brother were told to wait in an agonisingly long line that flowed outside the hall’s front doors. Erin glanced at Morgan’s face in the corner of his eye nervously. He didn’t want the line—or the people—pissing him off.

    “We have to wait, huh?” Morgan said absently, more to himself than Erin. His expression was unreadable, nearly bored.

  Erin was relieved. In the past couple of weeks his brother was more of a ticking time-bomb than a person, with exhausting, unpredictable mood-swings that Erin had had to get used to—and learn how to handle.

  The line continued to move—although slowly—and Morgan’s expression hardly changed. He yawned a couple of times, which was reassuring. Erin took the opportunity to go over the things he had learnt in the last two tiresome weeks:

 

  The exams themselves weren’t strict tests for knowledge. All students were coming from pretty varied backgrounds, so it was impossible. But it was also unnecessary. The tests were indicators of _potential—_ the abilities and traits students had the possibility to learn. In the past two weeks, all students were being tutored—privately, in Erin’s case—on the basic of basics, for simple things like how to summon magic, or how to recognise it, things like that.

  Erin needed private lessons because… he couldn’t sense magic. He couldn’t feel it, feel this magic force everyone around him kept eagerly coaching him to see. Erin tried, oh how he tried to feel it—but it was impossible. Stirrings, a flutter of nerves in his stomach, were the only reward he was given for his effort. Of course, if he couldn’t sense even the tiniest hint of magic, he couldn’t summon it.

  And that’s what had Erin’s stomach in knots the most.

 

  The line moved up a little further, and Morgan shouldered him out of his fears. When his brother’s reassurance didn’t come as it usually did—he was always listening in on his thoughts; it was just something he’d gotten used to—Erin grew even more worried. Absently he wondered if that whole business with Dahlia had distracted him and ruined his chances, but shrugged it off quickly. It was no one’s fault but his own that he was so… useless.

  Eventually the pair ended up, finally, at the head of the line, where the person sitting exhausted behind the desk handed Erin a ticket with the numbers ‘473’ printed on it.

 

    “Ah, that number should be up… in an hour? You can go check at the stadium hall. The second exam should be starting in a couple hours, so you got plenty of time.”

  They dismissed the pair quickly, and Erin shuffled out of the main hall feeling like a zombie.

    “I can’t tell if an hour is too long, or too short,” Erin joked, worried about the rising nausea in his stomach.

    “I’d want to get it over with,” Morgan said as they walked out onto the gardens beyond the hall. It was overcast, bruised clouds covering every inch of the sky, but the air still had the uncomfortable heat of summer. The tension in the air only fuelled Erin’s nervousness as the pair sat near a secluded spot on the grass just off from the main hall.

    “You want something to eat?” Morgan asked.

  Erin shook his head; he wouldn’t be able to stomach it anyway, and he knew his brother was doing it more out of courtesy than anything else—Morgan couldn’t eat.

  After sitting for twenty minutes or so in near silence—Erin, worried if he opened his mouth words wouldn’t be the only thing coming out and Morgan, in a distracted mood—someone came to join them.

 

    “Finally found you!”

  Erin’s spirits instantly lifted. Na’ya came and sat beside him, giving him a hug that made the butterflies in his stomach dance dizzyingly. “How’s prep coming?” she asked. Her smile slowly faded at the expression on Erin’s face.

    “I don’t know—not well, I guess,” Erin answered. “I don’t know if I can do this. I _still_ can’t sense magic, I can’t _do_ anything yet—what if I just… just can’t do it?”

  Na’ya put her hand on his knee, to which Erin nearly feinted right then and there. But he did feel a little less apprehensive. “Remember what I said? They’ll _teach_ you all that. No one has absolutely zero magical sense. You’ve lived in Jotai all your life, for crying out loud! It’s like… the hometown of magic!”

  Erin nodded rather than tell her he hadn’t been born in Jotai and crush her spirits. She was probably right anyway; Na’ya had told Erin in their lessons that she had been studying Parlour magic for a very long time, even though she was close to Erin’s age—everyone seemed to consider her a genius, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. She was certainly clever, but… he hadn’t seen her _do_ anything overly complicated.

  Na’ya and Erin continued to chat, going over everything Erin needed to know for the exam, and slowly the time flew by. If Na’ya hadn’t have been there, Erin shuddered to think how his nerves would have looked by the time he took his exam.

 

  Stadium hall was pretty much as its name described it—a massive gymnasium with a roof that opened out onto the sky and stands upon stands of seats. It looked more like a professional sports stadium than a school gym, but the Parlour was prestigious, after all. Who knew how they could afford something like this?

  At the massive size of the hall, Erin’s nerves came flooding back—he nearly hurled, but managed to just suppress the feeling.

 

    “Numbers 472, 473 and 474!” a voice called over the p.a. out front of the hall. Erin jumped about two-feet into the air.

    “You’ll do fine…!” Na’ya urged as she clasped Erin’s hands in her own.

    “Yeah, you’ll nail it.” Morgan only managed a half-smile, but it was enough.

  Erin nodded, grinning, “Yeah, I will!”

 

***

 

  He failed.

 

  Even the examiners began to feel sorry for him as again and again, he failed every test they put in front of him.

  First was the perception test. He couldn’t sense the magic they were showing him, couldn’t feel it even when they summoned more and more powerful mana for him to sense. Next was the magic summoning—even with the mana boosters they were giving him, he felt nothing, summoned nothing; he felt no different than any other time of the day, except for the slight stomach-ache that was beginning to form. There were others, each more simpler than the last—

  —Erin failed each time. The final straw—and the final test—was the Wandering Stone. Erin gingerly picked up a grey stone in the shape of an old bearded man’s head, praying, _urging_ the Empress to let this be it, let it finally be the one thing he succeeded at. For every other student, even the ones with the weakest touches of mana, the man’s eyes would begin to glow, his mouth would open wide and begin to hum.

  Erin waited, silently praying. He waited until the rock felt overwhelmingly heavy in his hands, until tears began to fall from his stinging eyes.

  But there was nothing.

  The old man’s eyes didn’t glow. His mouth stubbornly refused to open. Someone had to take the rock from Erin’s numb fingers and lead him out of the hall—he was too in shock to force himself to move.

  Erin stood out front of stadium hall for a long time. He couldn’t be sure how long, but Na’ya had come and hugged him, was giving him words of encouragement and comfort. It took him a long time before he could make out what she was saying.

    “—and there’s always the second exam. I’m sure you’ll do well on that—”

  Erin spoke slowly, having difficulty getting past the lump in his throat, “What did I get?” he asked, just in case that whole thing was some nightmare his tired brain had concocted.

  Na’ya froze, confused. “Erin, I mean—you… you failed. Zero-percent magic aptitude, is what it’s called. It’s actually an achievement all on its own—”

    “Na’ya,” Morgan warned before turning to Erin. “Like she said, there’s always the second exam.”

  Erin nodded, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  What was the point? He’ll fail the second one just as easily as the first, then what? Two failed exams in one day—Erin didn’t know if his heart would take it.

    “I’m going home,” he said, turning away from stadium hall and making his way across the campus.

    “Wait!” Na’ya urged.

    “Erin…!” Morgan groaned.

  The pair followed him, dragged him back by the shoulders. “Just try!” Na’ya said. “You won’t know until you try, right? The second exam isn’t like the first, I told you that.”

  Erin sighed. “What’s the point, Na’ya? I’m just…not cut out for magic—”

    “Don’t say that!” Na’ya grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him despite being so much smaller. “Listen, what if… what if there _is_ something you can do, this _one_ thing you can do? You’ve tried half of what the exams offer, but what about the other half? You owe it to yourself, to _all_ the effort you’ve put in the past couple weeks to try out _every single avenue_. Erin, you don’t give up. I can tell, even though we haven’t known each other that long, that you’re a stubborn guy. You go after what you want, and you take it. You helped me go do what I needed to, now it’s my turn to tell you to get off your ass, and just… do it!”

  She had shouted that last bit. Na’ya glanced around, embarrassed, then patted Erin’s shoulder with a laugh. “What’s the worst that could happen? You get zero-percent again? At least you can say you _tried_.”

  _She’s right,_ Erin thought.

    “She _is_ right,” Morgan said. “Don’t let a chance like this slip through your fingers, man.”

  Erin looked at the both of them, desperately trying to encourage him, even his distracted mess of a brother. A swell of immense pride and warmth seeped into Erin’s bones, chased away the disappointment and nerves.

    “I wasn’t… really gonna run,” he said with a small voice. “You’re right. I’ve gotta’ try everything I can. It’s not like… I’m afraid of failure…” He laughed nervously, but it came out more like a wheeze. “I won’t let you guys down.”

 

***

    “Numbers 439, 456 and 473 please!”

  Through the bundle of nerves that had replaced Erin’s body he wondered at the sudden change in numbers—until he didn’t need to anymore. The examinees waiting around out front stadium hall had significantly dwindled since the day had started; less than half remained, Erin guessed. What he couldn’t understand was why—they had to have had better results than his.

  When he stepped into the hall, shuffling behind the two students ahead of him, he asked the person escorting them inside this.

 

    “Of course, no one has zero-percent aptitude. But the students know anything below twenty is kind of… well, not a waste, but—they might not… belong here?”

  They said something else after that, but Erin wasn’t listening anymore. He was wasting everyone’s time here. He didn’t belong…after all.

  Erin barely paid attention as he was lead to the stadium hall’s stage, so big and extravagant it was more like the stage a celebrity would use than a student. The three examinees stood in a row as the examiners began to explain the rules. With dismay Erin realised of the four examiners two were part of his previous exam. He didn’t need to look them in the eye to know what they were thinking—he was too afraid to confirm it.

 

    “This exam is different to your previous one. We will be assessing you one at a time, rather than all three at once. The two other students beside you are here for observation only.”

  The examiner—a man with salt-and-pepper hair, glasses and kind, warm eyes—came and placed an ornate wooden box tied haphazardly with red ribbon at the three student’s feet.

    “Which one of you is number 439?”

  The student standing to Erin’s left raised her hand, stepping forward. She looked just as nervous as Erin fault, but there was a confidence to her steps as the examiner lead her to the front of the stage; Erin and the other remaining student were told to stand far back.

    “Stand here, and don’t move, okay? We’re testing not your aptitude to summon magic, but _for_ magic. In other words, how easily your bodies can tolerate it.”

  The student standing in front of the examiner put up her hand. “For sigil-glyphs, you mean?”

  The examiner nodded. “Yup, for ink. But it’s useful to know for other things, too. How much foreign magic your body can handle could determine your entire future here, among other things.”

  Erin recalled the black tattoos lacing across Jurien’s arms. Sigil-glyphs?

    “Now, don’t get discouraged if the magic doesn’t bond with you. As well as being temperamental, not many people can handle foreign magic in the first place. It’s like a virus—your body fights it. This is more a bonus test, than anything. Your first exam tells us more than we need to know.”

  The examiner glanced at Erin as he said this, and Erin’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t said it with any real malice, but Erin could guess his meaning. This exam was probably just setting him up for more disappointment. He really was wasting everybody’s time, and they all knew it.

    “It’ll bond with me,” the student said with a smirk. “I had sixty-two-percent magic aptitude.”

    “Is that so?” the examiner said as he indicated where she should stand, then stood several feet opposite. “Then you shouldn’t have any problems.”

  The examiner slashed two fingers in the air, and Erin gasped. A glowing red ring circled the man’s feet, stirring the air as it connected to the red-ribboned box. Despite the visible discharge of mana, once again Erin couldn’t feel any of it—he was lucky enough the mana was of a type he could see. The box rattled as the examiner held his palm upwards, then the ribbon itself began to glow, charged with mana, unfurling itself like it had a mind of its own.

  The massive hall was quiet as the ribbons hovered in the air; even the box had grown still. Then the lid creaked open, just a crack; the girl flinched as tendrils of red light burst from within the shadows of the box.

  As the light reached her they turned neon pink, then burst once they touched her skin. She had her arms wrapped protectively around her face as the tendrils of light came at her again and again, burst every time they reached her body. She didn’t appear to be in any pain, though—after a while she glanced up, and a slither of pink light snagged her hand, wrapping itself tightly around her palm.

    “Don’t panic!” the examiner called as she began to struggle. “It’s bonding to you!”

  The room waited on bated breath as the tendrils came at her, but no other slither of light was able to seize her. After a while the light began to slow, like it was growing tired. Then it stopped completely, only the light wrapped around her hand remaining.

    “Hmm,” was all the examiner said. “We’re done.” He lowered his hand, releasing the magic, and the ribbon unlatched itself from the girl’s palm and disintegrated in the air. The box snapped shut, echoing across the hall, and the ribbons neatly tied themselves once again around the wood.

    “…So?” the student asked expectantly. “What did I get?”

 

  The examiner pondered this for a moment. “I’d say… two-percent aptitude?”

She gasped. The girl actually looked physically wounded, like someone had hit her. “T-t-t-two-percent? _Only?_ ”

  The examiner shrugged. “I did say not to be too discouraged.”

  A lot of fuss and pushing had to be done to get the girl to stand off to the side of the stage but once she did it was the second student’s turn. They were a lot more nervous, seeing the tendrils of light in action.

  Once the examiner unleashed the box Erin was surprised to notice that this time when the light reached the student they turned green—was everyone’s colour different? Erin wondered what colour his would be, then stopped—it wasn’t like it was going to matter in the end anyway, right? Not even _one_ of those slithers of light would reach his skin.

  Those thoughts fled him as he realised the student had tendrils wrapped around some of his limbs, even a few around his torso; even the box’s lid was open slightly further than before. Plenty still disintegrated before they could reach him entirely, but Erin was impressed. He had at least six more bandaged around his body than the first girl had.

    “Hmm,” the examiner repeated once the test was done, the ribbons of light stowed away once again. “I’d say… fourteen-percent? Not bad, in all. You could even get some sigil-glyphs done, if you wanted. They’d probably hurt like hell, though.”

  The second student beamed, which Erin found funny in retrospect. Who would _wish_ pain on themselves? He could never understand tattoo-enthusiasts.

    “Well, 437. Good luck.” That was all the examiner said once Erin stood in the middle of the stage, a glint of pity in the teacher’s eyes. Erin gulped when he called the magic, ribbons unfurling once again. He half-shut his eyes, waiting for the box to rattle, for the tendrils of light to appear.

  Nothing happened.

  Erin felt his heart break, just a little. His only chance… and he’d messed it up. After all that searching, all that study… even the effort the teachers wasted on him, the effort Na’ya helped him with… _wasted._

  The examiner sighed. “I’m sorry, kid. It just happens sometimes—”

 

  The box’s lid burst open completely, the first time it had that day. The first thing that tipped Erin off that something was strange was the light’s colour—as they neared him, faster and hungrier than before, the tendrils glowed a myriad of rainbow colours. Erin didn’t have time to ponder it, though. A cascade of rainbow ribbons wrapped themselves around his arms, hands, neck, torso, thighs, legs feet… every place they could possibly receive purchase, besides his head. He panicked when it snagged his neck, but the light didn’t strangle him. It didn’t hurt, either.

  Once his entire body was covered head-to-toe, the light slowed, but rather than stop it seemed to try to _find_ a place on his body that wasn’t already occupied, like it had a life of its own. When it couldn’t find one the slithers hovered around him, as though happy just to be in his presence.

  But they wouldn’t stop. The ribbons would not stop coming.

    “This is impossible—” the examiner said, breaking off as the box at his feet, so far rattling like it was caught in a storm as it released its contents, began to crack.

  Then it shattered.

  Whatever it had been holding was finally free. Erin could only see a strange ball that impossibly glowed black, before it was forcing its way into his chest.

 

    “H-Hey…!” he called as his chest grew heavier and heavier, the black light forcing its way inside.

 

     _Flesh, flesh!_

_A body, finally…_

_Take it, get it before they—_

_Stop, no, you’re hurting the boy—_

_So close, don’t stop…!_

Erin gasped at the sudden voices in his head, all clamouring for his attention at once, infiltrating his mind and body like a disease.

    “Shit!” the examiner said through gritted teeth. He raised his hands in the air and like conducting an orchestra, instructed the ribbons that had once been wrapped around the wooden box into the air. The ribbons came flying at Erin, and he screamed once they forced their way into this chest…

  …But it didn’t hurt like it should, he realised after a moment of panic.

    _No!_

_Let us go—_

_I don’t want… to go back._

He glanced down. The ribbons glowed with an ethereal light, passing through his body like air as they reached for whatever was inside. Slowly, so slowly, the heavy weight in his chest lifted as the ribbons agonisingly extracted the black _thing_ inside, the voices growing more and more desperate and terrified.

    _No, please._

_Please, help us!_

_Don’t let it end—_

_We just want a body…_

_PLEASE…!_

The last voice was an agonising scream that rattled Erin’s brain like someone had yelled in his ear—the black light had finally been extracted. The voices vanished.

  Erin breathed a sigh of relief as the examiner’s ribbons tightly wrapped themselves around the black light, passing through the slithers emitted from it still connected to Erin’s body. After a moment, once the light was completely obscured, the tendrils wrapped around Erin’s body…crumbled. The light lost its glow, falling away into nothing like dust, leaving his limbs blissfully free.

 

  Everyone was quiet.

  After a moment, the other three examiners got unsteadily to their feet, stepping on to the stage where Erin was on his knees. He was exhausted suddenly from whatever that thing had done to him. It was the examiner with the salt-and-pepper hair—now holding a neatly bandaged ball of red ribbon under his arm—that held out his hand to help Erin stand.

    “Kid… that’s incredible.”

  Erin coughed lightly, his chest still a bit heavy as he gratefully took the man’s hand. “Did I fail?”

  The examiner laughed, along with his colleagues. “No, no, you didn’t.”

    “So… what did I…get?” Erin braced himself, already prepared for the worst.

 

  The examiner’s voice was incredulous as he said it, like even he couldn’t believe what he was about to say:

 

 “One-hundred-percent bearer aptitude.”


	11. You're Losing Sight, You're Losing Touch

 

    It was slow at first, as it always was.

Just a peck here and there, the taste of Melanie’s strawberry lip balm in his mouth, always, always laced with the perfume of her blood. Then it would escalate, as it always did. This time Morgan let her drag him on top of her, down into the hard mattress of her bed even as she kissed him.

  He was careful, so very careful, not to break her as he playfully bit her on the lip. She shivered at his teeth, the heat under his skin making her blood boil.

  As Mel lifted his sweatshirt from his shoulders, Morgan left a trail of kisses from her mouth, across her cheek, and down toward her neck. He stopped there for a second, palms digging into the mattress as his kisses grew more and more aggressive. Mel’s scent drowned him, smothered him as it rolled off his tongue, in his nose, in the back of throat. It choked him even as he revelled in it, that sweet, sweet scent that was only unique to her, only his to have. It was there, right there, if only he could just­—

 

    “M-Morgan, stop!”

  Mel slammed her palms into Morgan’s shoulders, pushing his chest away as hard as she could. For a second, the smell of fear and anxiety flooded Morgan’s nose, the loss of awareness heightened just briefly at the thrill, before he forcefully pulled himself out of it.

    “What…?” he asked innocently through elongated fangs, batting his lashes like a scolded child even as his mouth welled with saliva. He knew very well what he had been about to do, but hoped Mel would let him get away with it.

  She smacked him on his bare shoulder, but she wasn’t serious. “You know what! Honestly, I would, but with my skin…”

  Morgan pouted, relieved she’d let him off the hook. It wasn’t like he couldn’t understand her reluctance—if she wasn’t careful, certain wounds would heal white and ugly in contrast to the pretty black of her skin. He kissed her bare neck as he said, “Your skin is great. I could heal it anyway…” he tested the waters lightly.

    “I know you probably could. I don’t want to risk it, though. You’ll have to hold off…if you can control yourself.” She flashed him a sarcastic grin as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer—

  The pair stopped, blinking like two deer trapped by headlights. Mel’s grandmother, Roselyn, stood in the doorway—but she hadn’t even noticed them. She was instead staring down at her phone.

 

    “Okay, which one of you is using so much hot water?” she grumbled with a huff, waving her phone at them. “Have you seen the last bill?!”

  Mel threw her pillow at Morgan’s face as she said with a laugh, “That would be _this_ guy.”

  Morgan slid to the edge of the mattress and grabbed his shirt, knowing when the moment was gone. “Maybe… it was me.”

    “You got circulation worse than me, son,” Roselyn grumbled.

    “So I’ve been told,” Morgan said sheepishly. Which wasn’t exactly untrue; Morgan’s burning-blood ‘Sleight’—as the _Vorvintti_ seemed to call their specific abilities—meant he had such a high heat tolerance to the point where normal people would have their brains melt before he’d even bat a lash. This had the obvious downside that showers always felt a little on the cold side, even if the heat was turned on all the way.

    “Leave it on my tab,” Morgan continued with a wink.

  Roselyn sighed. “You should probably get that checked out.” She left before he could form a reply to that, and Morgan had the very brief thought that Roselyn hadn’t come in just for the gas bill, but something very different.

  His thoughts were dashed against the rocks as Mel pounced on his back, lacing her arms around his neck and playfully nibbling at his ear. Morgan pulled her into his lap before his phone begun to ring.

    “Shouldn’t you get that?” Mel asked.

    “Do I have to?” Morgan groaned.

    “It might be an emergency,” Mel said, her lips cool against his.

  Morgan ceded that. Too many ‘emergencies’ had been happening lately, and if he could intervene and save someone’s life… he wanted to do it in a timely manner.

  Grabbing his smartphone from his jeans on the floor, he glanced at the caller ID—his father. He _very_ reluctantly answered the call. “Hello?”

    “Morgan.”

  Morgan froze at his name, at the gravity in his father’s voice. His body went completely still as Killian continued, “There’s an emergency.”

  Mel had heard the conversation and was already off Morgan’s lap before he ended the call. Morgan was moving so quickly, so aggressively shoving things into pockets and putting on clothes he had to remind himself to be careful not to tear anything.

    “Will you be alright?”

  Morgan nodded, distracted. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

    “…That’s not what I mean,” Mel said after a moment in a low voice.

    “I know.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be fine.”

  They parted, Morgan jumping the flight of stairs from Melanie’s apartment to the ground level, emerging from the backroom into a convenience store. It was always a little disorienting going from a house and into a store, where regular customers were perusing the shelves while just a moment ago Morgan had been in bed. But he couldn’t deny the ‘convenience’.

    “Leaving?” Roselyn asked from behind the register, putting down the crossword puzzle she’d been doing.

  Morgan slid to a stop, nearly pushing over a stack of newspapers. “Y-yeah.”

    “Here.” She threw him a packet of bright-red lollipops.

    “On the house?” he asked. Roselyn rarely gave him freebies, preferring instead to appeal to his kind nature—and his wallet.

    “Empress no. On your tab.”

 _There_ was the Roselyn he knew and loved.

 

***

 

    Morgan could barely remember travelling home. It was one of those moments where he was too panicked to think, too focused on the outcomes to concentrate on where he was, instead doing everything on autopilot. He couldn’t even remember if he’d said hello to the guy that manned the elevator. In no time at all he was knocking on his father’s office door, his hand shaking just slightly as anxiety gnawed at his belly.

    “Come in,” his father’s voice said.

  Killian was seated in his leather office chair behind his massive mahogany desk, turned away from the door. To Morgan’s surprise, he found Erin sitting on one of the luxurious cream couches off to the side of the office, tapping away at his phone. He caught Morgan’s eye, and Morgan wiggled his eyebrows as if to ask, ‘ _What’s going on?’_

 _Dunno,_ came Erin’s mental reply. _He hasn’t said anything. Just told me to wai—holy shit there’s a Ghastly in here…!_

  Morgan cut off the link right there.

    “Dad…?” he asked, turning his attention back to his father’s desk.

  After a moment, Killian let out a sigh that Morgan could hear from across the room. He swung his chair around, fingers steepled beneath his chin. He looked like a villain from a spy film—Morgan mused absently he probably had been waiting for him like this for ages.

  Killian sighed again, placing his palms reverently on the desk. Erin put his phone away and leaned forward, literally on the edge of his seat. Morgan found himself waiting on baited breath as well.

    “It’s…”

    “It’s…?” Morgan prodded.

    “It’s… your aunt.”

  Horror filled him. From the look on Killian’s face, it looked like he’d been too late to do anything, too late to save one of his aunts from disaster—

    “…Which one?” he asked, his eyes beginning to grow warm.

    “…What?”

    “Which one died?!”

  Killian’s massive bushy grey eyebrows—a trait of which Morgan was a very unfortunate recipient—shot up into his hairline. “Died…? No one died!”

    “But—”

    “They’re getting married! They’re holding a wedding ceremony and, well… of course we have to go!”

  Relief hit Morgan like a drug. But then the real horror settled in. “A ceremony.”

  Killian’s voice grew serious once again. “An extravagant one.”

  A chill went down Morgan’s spine. “When?”

    “Three weeks. But— that’s not the worst bit.”

  Morgan braced himself; what could be worse than one of his aunt Sera’s ‘ceremonies’?

    “It’s being held… on Earth.”

  Killian was right—the ceremony was the least of their concerns. “Oh God.”

    “Are you guys… kidding? You’re kidding right, this is a joke?” Erin stood, getting in between the both of them. Morgan was startled to realise he came up to his chin—just yesterday he swore he could barely reach his chest. “What’s so bad about Earth? We were all _born_ there; who gives a crap?”

  Morgan and Killian voiced their biggest fear at the same time: “ _Customs_.”

    “Cus…toms…” Erin said, bewildered.

    “You can’t imagine the waiting times—” Morgan begun.

    “Or the cost,” Killian continued.

    “—Rift sickness—”

    “Luggage fees.”

    “Secrecy policies—”

    “Secrecy policy _bribes—_ ”

    “Alright, alright!” Erin interrupted. “I get it! It’s expensive, so what? That’s just normal travel bullcrap, isn’t it?”

    “So young…” Morgan shook his head. “You have yet to learn, young one.”

  Killian nodded. “Interdimensional-customs—the beast few are brave enough to endure. Unless they work in the government, of course.”

  Erin looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. “We still have to go, though.” Morgan couldn’t help love that little glint of excitement and eagerness in Erin’s eyes; he always did like something new, even if it was the evil of long-distance transportation. “What about school?” he asked.

    “I’ve still got about a month left of summer break, so I should be fine,” Erin answered, scratching his chin.

    “What about homework?”

  Erin gave him a long, heavy, complicated look that involved a simultaneous sneer and creasing of his bushy copper eyebrows. It was all the answer he needed.

  Killian looked—and sounded, albeit reluctantly—resigned. “You two should start packing. Have Riei help you if you don’t know what to pack.” He glanced heavily at Erin when he said this, but Morgan had the feeling that that look should have been directed at him instead.

  Erin very visibly resisted rolling his eyes. “It’s cool, dad.”

 

***

 

  It was, ironically, not very cool for Morgan.

  He’d packed everything he thought he needed for three weeks— _without_ his previous nanny, Riei’s, help—before he was faced with a very immediate and problematic dilemma.

    “Morgan, hurry up!” came Erin’s voice from downstairs.

  If Morgan could still sweat, he’d be drenched. His family were already waiting for him, packed and ready to go; they needed to make the six-forty-am rift, or risk waiting several more hours for space to free up on another transport.

    “C-coming!” he called out, violently zipping his suitcase closed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck,”_ he mouthed as he yanked his suitcase across the room. And stopped.

  Riei was standing in the doorway, somehow looking both concerned and disappointed at the same time.

 

    “Everyone’s waiting—and you’re an adult now, Morgan, there’s no need for that kind of language.”

  Aside from his father, Riei—the Japanese woman hired by Morgan’s father to teach his sons at list a bit of their mother tongue—was probably the only person in the world that could make Morgan feel truly embarrassed and humble. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just—”

    “Just what?”

  Morgan couldn’t finish. He’d just caught sight of the ugly scar on the side of Riei’s neck, shiny and pink against the pale alabaster of her skin. _He_ had put that scar there, the very first time he had awoken as a _Vorvintti—_ the very first person he had attacked instinctively. Not the last, either.

  His words died in his throat. “It’s nothing. Not important.” Instead he placed his hand on Riei’s shoulder, nodded, then joined his family waiting below.

 

***

 

  It was as horrible as Morgan remembered.

It wasn’t just the long lines, or the constant throng of people that even the Port—a huge skyscraper-like building that housed most of Jotai City’s rifts into other dimensions—couldn’t properly handle. There was also the new and unique issue of Killian having to pass off everyone in the group as just harmless humans going back to their home world—once upon a time that might have been the reality, but not anymore.

  Killian gave Morgan yet another glare as the group were lead down a separate private corridor from regular commuters, where they could be waived through the whole screening process without attracting the attention of security personnel.

  At first Morgan had been kind of sheepish about it, shrugging his shoulders as if to say _‘What can you do?’_ but the constant look of disapproval on his father’s face was beginning to piss him off.

    “Don’t make so many enemies next time, maybe?” he said under his breath before he could stop himself.

    “What was that?” Killian asked, tone setting off alarm bells in Morgan’s head that had been there since childhood—that he promptly ignored and now only fuelled his anger.

    “Don’t start fights you can’t win,” Morgan growled, incisors beginning to ache.

  Erin gasped very audibly, cringing.

    “Are you trying to start a fight with me, Morgan?”

    “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You shouldn’t have made the _Vorvintti_ your enemy if you weren’t prepared to fight them.”

  By now even the bribed Port-worker was looking uncomfortable, but didn’t dare interrupt.

    “I did what was _necessary._ Someone as reckless and arrogant as you are wouldn’t understand.”

  Morgan must have had one hell of a look on his face because the Port-worker visibly shivered, their lips quivering before they turned back and continued leading them down the corridor.

    “No I don’t think I _could_ get why you’d do something so stupid.” He was so angry, along the way he’d lost his Jotean accent, now sounding more like his father than ever. Which only pissed him off more.

  The group climbed a set of stairs, emerging in a long, marble-tiled hall lined with booths on either side. There were few people here; only a handful were being lead through doorways behind the booths to presumably where they’d be transported through a rift to another world.

    “W-we’re… here…” the Port-worker said in a very small voice, Morgan and Killian still glaring daggers at each other while Killian formed a response.

    “If I hadn’t retaliated, none of us would be here in the first place,” Killian said finally.

    “You could’ve… _negotiated_ something! You didn’t have to try and _beat_ them—”

    “If you’ll remember, it was _you_ that fucked our plans in the first place. It was _you_ that tried to steal that fucking crystal from under their noses. You got _yourself_ turned.”

  Morgan’s heart beat thunderously in his ears, too shocked to hear anything else. After a moment, voice shaking with disbelief as though even he couldn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth, he said: “I did it… for you.”

  Killian’s jade-green eyes grew wide, all the malice gone from his expression. “And that’s the worst bit.”

  They glanced away from each other, Morgan too shocked and hurt to say anything else. Killian’s face was unreadable.

    “Ah, w-we’re ready for you now… if you want…” the Port-worker hadn’t left, choosing instead not to interrupt—and in the long run, preserve their lifespan.

    “Of course,” Killian said, once again all business and formal.

  The group were lead to the back in silence, a circular room with walls that seemed to be just one long, uninterrupted mirror, except for the flashes of light and words in an unfamiliar language that pulsed along its clear surface. Morgan spied himself in the mirror—the veins at his temple and cheeks were a slightly alarming shade of purple; his pupils nearly completely vertical and orange, like metal in a furnace. If he didn’t calm himself down, he’d have difficulty convincing anyone he was the harmless human being returning to his home that they were all pretending he was.

  Standing on the transport terminal—a massive plate of fragmented crystal that strangely reminded Morgan of the Chrysalis with its myriad of colours—they waited.

  The Port-worker fiddled with some of the high-tech equipment just to the side of the terminal, glancing at strange dials and panels that Morgan couldn’t even begin to guess the meaning of, typing at a computer. Turning back to the waiting group and glancing them over, they asked, “Is everyone ready?”

  Killian looked around, and after checking to see if all their affairs were in order, finally nodded.

  The Port-worker looked understandably relieved to finally be rid of them. “Departing now, then. Have a n-nice trip…!”

  They pulled a strangely old-fashioned lever that looked slightly out-of-place amongst all the high-tech equipment, and the terminal began to glow. To Morgan’s surprise, the terminal flooded with black light from within, rather than the white he was expecting. Once the entire crystal was flooded, it exploded upward, like a stream of bats from within a cave, enveloping the group in its impossibly black light.

  The light itself was harmless; Morgan couldn’t even feel it against his skin. But the sudden outburst of energy, and the change in gravity and weightlessness beneath his feet made his head spin—he had to concentrate very hard to keep his breakfast where it was.

  But after just one excruciating moment, his feet found solid ground, the magic subsided, and the light faded. Erin tripped beside him, his gangly limbs not as easily able to stick the landing.

 

    “Tough trip?” a voice asked.

    “You could say that again,” Erin replied as the voice’s owner helped him to his feet.

 

    “Humph. A rift will do you some good. Get some hairs on that chest…!” their aunt, Sera, said.


	12. Seething

****

  Once again, Erin visibly bit back a reply as aunt Sera hoisted him to his feet, surprisingly strong for such a tiny woman—Erin stumbled, stopping himself from bumping into her.

 

    “I hope the ride wasn’t _too_ unpleasant,” came a cool voice.

  Morgan looked away from his luggage at his _other_ aunt, Chieko—he’d never get used to the idea of his late mother’s sister and father’s sister marrying each other, no matter how long he had to get used to it. And he had all the time in the world.

    “It wasn’t that bad,” Morgan said, voice sounding small to his ears.

  Chieko gave a small, clipped nod, then proceeded to greet the rest of his family.

  Even after half a year… he had no idea how to behave around her.

 

  Chieko once was—still is, Morgan supposed—the leader of not just the _Akatsuki’s_ father branch, _Aohi,_ but also of a small immigrant clan of kitsune. Fox demons—all born women, as its impossible for a male to be born—given human form that had needed to escape the destruction of their home world, anyway possible. For whatever reason Chieko had in taking them in, no one, not even Chieko’s most trusted ‘liutenant’, Hanami, knew her true intentions, or why she did it—she’d even allowed one of their oldest and most powerful to take over her body, to _possess_ her.

  And for a long time, everything was fine. The kitsune grew used to their strange new home, to living within the floating Lyn City, under Chieko’s protection. But… the demon—the _kitsune_ , possessing Chieko got cocky. She started taking more and more, manipulating and hurting the people around her; _taking over_ Chieko’s body leaving her with no memories of whatever she’d done. Tamamo, the kitsune was called, thought the gangs around her were easy pickings, especially with a kitsune’s uncanny ability to hypnotise the mind—an ability that even Morgan was only barely able to rival, and only after repeated exposure.

  There wasn’t anything especially wrong with this—

  —expect that Tamamo had her eyes suddenly set on the _Akatsuki._

  Morgan could never understand the reasoning behind it. The _Akatsuki_ were her comrades. Her allies. More than that, they had _come_ from her own gang. It was unthinkable to steal from them, even more so to put some of their members in danger. Not that she had gotten away with it.

  Morgan had seen to that.

He’d discovered her deception, called her out, and as she’d tried to escape, had put the entire _Akatsuki_ base in an eternal sleep that could only be cured…with her death.

  Of course, Morgan couldn’t murder his own aunt. In the end he’d painstakingly stripped the kitsune from her body, exorcising the demon with all the precision of someone playing _Operation_ while severely drunk—not that he’d had that particular experience.

  Could you say ‘sorry-I-killed-your-friend-and-put-you-through-a-traumatic-experience’ with a card? Morgan didn’t have the balls for that, so instead he avoided his aunt like the plague. Which wasn’t any better, really, but what could he do?

 

    “Why don’t I get those for ya’?” Sera asked. Once again surprising Morgan with her brute strength, Sera deftly picked up his luggage and carried it inside the… house?

    “Wow,” he whistled. He hadn’t been entirely sure whether they’d been going to Sera’s place in Ireland, or Chieko’s in Japan, but judging by the house, it was pretty easy to see which one of the two he lucked out on:

  Elegantly sloping roofs of black slate, alabaster walls, and traditional wooden trimmings soared into the night sky, lit by the pale light of a grinning half-moon. It was like some Japanese royalty’s house right out of an anime; Morgan had no other way to describe it. An impressive array of trees, shrubs and flowers grew barely in check around what he realised to be the back garden, although the trees were only bare skeletons and everything was covered in a thick layer of snow—Morgan hadn’t even realised the cold, despite wearing only t-shirt and thin jacket.

  With noticeably thick breath that fogged his glasses, he hastened inside the brightly-lit house along with everyone else, feigning being desperate to get out of the cold.

    “Here’s paradise…!” Sera said with a grin, still carrying Morgan’s bag.

  Morgan couldn’t exactly see the appeal. In typical Japanese fashion, the place was incredibly minimalistic, just the bare-bones of furniture and essentials around the place, and even then it was only the most expensive and extravagant of items. He had no doubt in his mind _this_ was Chieko’s place.

    “It’s…nice,” Erin said, voice just a little too obviously strained. “Lucky you told us to pack for the cold, huh dad?”

  Morgan resisted slapping himself on the forehead.

    _The geezer had mentioned that,_ he thought. Blending in might be just a little more difficult than he realised.

    “Why are you having your wedding in winter, Sera?” Morgan asked instead of worrying. He figured most women preferred their weddings to be in either spring or summer, spring probably more preferable with the cooler weather and flowers in full bloom; even he had to admit he would’ve liked the nicer atmosphere, although the weather hardly made any difference to him.

    “Chie prefers the cold,” she answered, one immaculately manicured nail against her chin in thought. “And I get terrible allergies in in the spring. An outdoor wedding, then? That would be death.”

  Morgan shrugged. “I get that.”

  Chieko, so far silent besides the greeting she’d given them, placed her hand on Sera’s shoulder. “Why don’t we show them to their rooms? I’ll take that.” She grabbed Morgan’s luggage from Sera’s hands, having a little more trouble than her fiancée but not breaking her calm exterior in the least as she indicated for Morgan to follow her with a measured look. She didn’t even wait for Sera’s reply as she led him to the left of the building and down the wooden-floored corridor, toward the west-wing of the house.

  There was surprisingly few people about, just a few _Aohi_ members chatting in the halls or taking it easy on couches; Morgan wondered what time of night it was.

  The further they went, the bigger he realised the house was. It unravelled itself like a puzzle, more like a hotel than a home. Eventually, Chieko painstakingly carried his luggage up two flights of stairs. When Morgan couldn’t take it anymore and attempted to take his bag back, she froze him with a frigid look that chilled more than the snow ever could.

    “Here,” she finally said, voice a little colder than usual. She slid open a door to the only room on the floor, a small but comfortable space on the highest level that made Morgan feel only slightly like a princess being locked away in a tower. His ‘captor’ heaved his bags into the room, an uneasy feeling blooming in Morgan’s stomach when she slid the door closed behind her. “Sit,” she said, indicating a pile of cushions on the floor.

  Morgan sat. Chieko was silent for a moment, eyes half-lidded. Then the moment drew into a minute. He couldn’t kneel on his knees like Chieko could for so long—after only sitting for a few minutes, he crossed his legs, opting instead to politely place his hands in lap. Even then, he couldn’t stop fidgeting.

  He couldn’t even read her thoughts. Though he’d shattered the pearl earrings that had bound Tamamo to Chieko’s body himself, it seemed like she’d somehow gotten a kitsune to give her another pair; it was one of the few things Morgan found that could block his telepathy. He didn’t like it.

  After another eight hundred of Chieko’s heartbeats, Morgan couldn’t take it anymore.

 

    “Aunty—”

    “Quiet.”

  The command almost had the perspicuity of kitsune hypnosis it was so potent. Morgan bit his tongue, like a scolded child.

  It took her a long moment, but finally, _finally,_ Chieko seemed prepared to speak. She unfolded her hands neatly from her lap as she asked, “Does the weather bother you?”

  Morgan copied her concise demeanour, not wanting to push her. “No, it doesn’t.”

  She nodded. “Good. If you don’t bring it up, hopefully no one will notice.” She glanced at his luggage. “You brought everything you need?”

  Morgan grew a little puzzled—where was she going with this? “Yes…?”

  Chieko’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. “That’s fine, then.”

  As Morgan continued to look confused, Chieko seemed to _deflate_ , her body growing slack as she relaxed, a slight frown appearing between her usually smooth, cool brows. It was in that moment Morgan noticed the slight wrinkles around her coal-black eyes that hadn’t been there half a year ago, the purple bags barely concealed by makeup. He felt incredibly guilty all of a sudden.

    _Was this my fault?_ he thought.

  His worry must have shown on his face because Chieko answered without him needing to utter a word. “It isn’t your fault. Nothing was. You needed to do what you needed for your— _our—_ family. And I needed to do what needed for the kitsune. I…Tamamo lost, that’s just how it goes. I don’t resent you for it.” She sighed, long and hard. For the first time in his entire life he saw Chieko rub the back of her neck, face creased in stress.

  Morgan couldn’t say he was equally worried—Chieko forgiving him took a great weight off his shoulders he hadn’t even known he’d had. “Then… what is it?” he asked.

    “Well…” she paused, mouth still poised to continue. It was on the tip of her tongue, whatever she wanted to say, like she desperately wanted to tell him, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. That only worried Morgan more. Finally, she said, “It’s nothing. Nothing you need to worry about. I have everything under control.”

    _It doesn’t look like it,_ Morgan thought. But he was reluctant to pry any further; he couldn’t ignore the rift that had formed between them—not that there was much of a relationship between them in the first place—and didn’t want to tip her over the edge any more than he’d already done in the past. He couldn’t remember where he’d heard it, but if someone had difficulty telling you something, it was easier just to be patient and wait for them to cough up the information voluntarily. So he waited.

  After a moment, Chieko’s frown seemed to deepen. “It really is nothing, Morgan.”

    “I didn’t say anything…!”

  Chieko nodded slowly, getting to her feet and dusting herself off a little too quickly, eager to leave. “If there’s anything else you need…”

    “I got it,” he said with a fake smile.

  With a final nod, Chieko left.

There was no doubt she was hiding something, and Morgan couldn’t blame her for keeping secrets from him, but it still pissed him off anyway. There could be something he could do, some way he could help…

  It wasn’t just Chieko, but it seemed as though everyone were keeping their distance from him, afraid of what he was capable of, or what he might do without warning.

  It was a sudden sad and lonely feeling, a feeling that he could just as easily turn off, like a light switch.

  He didn’t.

 

***

    There’s this idea, originally from Japan, known as ‘Paris Syndrome’. The best way to describe it would be that anyone visiting Paris would feel disillusioned—cheated, even—when their expectations aren’t met by the City of Light.

  In a bizarre twist, Morgan felt this very same thing about Japan.

  He couldn’t understand Chieko’s explanation very well, but from what he _could_ gather she’d seemed to have settled on a country estate just outside of Narita—despite the vast amount of anime Morgan had seen, he couldn’t recall the name at all—which lay just beside the major city of Chiba. When he asked ‘But what about, y’know, Tokyo?” she assured him they were just nearby—an hour and half by car, in fact. That didn’t seem particularly ‘nearby’ to Morgan, who had grown up being able to instantaneously portal his way to any precinct within Jotai City that he wanted, but he had nodded anyway.

  ‘Country’ estate was also another factor that led to his disillusionment, because the house was very much situated in what some would consider ‘the sticks’. The nearest station was at least twenty minutes by car, the only major stores in the vicinity, of all things, a landscaping supply store. Which made sense, Morgan relented, since most of the place was just farmland and trees.

  No one had asked if he’d wanted to go into the city—Narita, Chiba, Tokyo, he didn’t care, as long as it didn’t reek of manure—and he highly doubted anyone, his father and Chieko especially, would let him go alone so he hadn’t bothered to bring it up.

  And so the first few days of his stay in Chiba went by in horrendously uneventful fashion.

 

  It was on Morgan’s fourth day he really started to notice Chieko’s strange behaviour.

He’d seen her in the past few days muttering in a low voice to one of her subordinates, someone Morgan could instantly identify as a kitsune by the smell of their blood and the pearl earrings twinkling in their ears. Their low voices increased over the course of a few days, until kitsune were interrupting Chieko in nearly every activity she did with the family until she just stopped coming all together. They must have been using magic to hide their voices, because no matter how much he tried, Morgan could never make out what they said, despite being able to hear even the tiniest creak of floorboards in the hallway even from up within his ‘tower’.

  The fourth day was the worst, however. Chieko herself looked more stressed than ever, not even bothering to wear her usually immaculate makeup; even her clothes looked just slightly dishevelled. She avoided eating with the family about as much as Morgan did—despite Sera’s iron-clad persistence—always finding excuses to leave the room, or busying herself with her laptop and phone. Usually she didn’t even need the excuses; a different kitsune every hour were constantly at her elbow, updating her on details Morgan desperately wanted to get in on. Even the various kitsune looked positively distressed at best, about to pull their hair out at worst.

  After having returned from his second walk around the neighbourhood that day—besides the landscaping supply store, there really wasn’t much else for him to see; even the locals spoke such pure and inflected Japanese he couldn’t understand a word—Morgan finally couldn’t take it anymore.

 

  Lounging on the plush couches in the main room and sucking on one of the red lollipops Roselyn had given him, Chieko crossed the hall behind the TV stand, chatting earnestly into the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, laptop in hand, while a kitsune talked into her other ear.

  He could see it happening even before Chieko realised it. The way her muscles moved, too overwhelmed all at once. First the laptop wobbled in her grip, but with her phone against her ear she couldn’t stop it, not without dropping the phone as well. The kitsune was a little up ahead, still chatting, but completely oblivious to the situation happening behind them.

  Time froze to a crawl as the laptop slid out of Chieko’s palm. Morgan was across the room even before the laptop had completely slipped away from Chieko’s fingers. He grabbed it out of the air, snatching the phone as well as that too came falling down.

  Finally the kitsune turned and came back. Morgan shot them a dirty look as Chieko took her things back in slightly shaking fingers.

    “You can’t go on like this,” he growled, barely able to conceal the anger in his voice.

  Chieko’s eyes narrowed as she replied, voice equally dripping with venom, “Neither can you.”

  He paled, just slightly, before he could school his features. “If there’s something serious going on, you know you could use my help,” he said instead, unashamedly changing the subject.

  Chieko sighed, animosity dissolving like tissue paper in water as she handed over her laptop to the kitsune. “…I know. I _know,_ I’ve just—I didn’t want to get you involved. But,” she nodded just slightly, seeming to reach a decision, “It might be for the best after all.”

    “…I want you to trust me more,” Morgan said after a moment. “And if there’s something that just I can do, then…”

    “I know. Thank you. Well,” she straightened up, all professional and business once again, though her step was definitely lighter somehow, “I guess I’ll need to show you the room.”

    “Room…?” he asked, but Chieko didn’t reply, only shaking her head.

    “You’ll see,” was the only thing she said. With just that and nothing else she led him through to the opposite side of the house from Morgan’s room. They passed a few lounge areas, a large and well-stocked kitchen and into Chieko’s bedroom, which was set just apart from the rest of the house and had a unique design given only to the master bedroom of the house.

  Morgan grew puzzled at the stark emptiness of the room, before Chieko slid open her cupboard. It was a walk-in closet of course, racks and shelves filled with priceless shoes and luxurious dresses made of expensive silks. That wasn’t surprising in the least. What was surprising was when Chieko crossed the small space and pressed her thumb to a nearly invisible panel set in the wall that Morgan couldn’t see from beyond the closet’s door.

  The panel of wood smoothly slid away, revealing a staircase lit by lights set in the floor.

    “What…?” Morgan asked, but neither Chieko nor the kitsune answered, instead descending the staircase and assuming he’d follow.

  Without hesitation, he did.


End file.
